So, I do think that XMPP will become a much bigger force given the (anecdotal) rate that post-college students replace their college email with Gmail (and get G

So, I do think that XMPP will become a much bigger force given the (anecdotal) rate that post-college students replace their college email with Gmail (and get Google Talk with it). However, XMPP can't just rest. It really needs to get Jingle (their VoIP/video protocol) finished and approved and adopted. With more people looking to use voice and video online, they can't be left behind because of lack of features. With Google driving some adoption and (hopefully) smaller IM networks seeing that XMPP would be in their interests (since it would help them overcome a lack of users), XMPP could see decent enough growth. However, if other networks have desired features that XMPP doesn't offer, the interoperability argument is countered by the lacking of things users want.