aim is still a huge part of the IJ world. though, customs and threading have become more widely accepted as of the past year or so. definitely look into chatzy.com like the person of my suggested. it's free but keep in mind it does NOT keep logs beyond a certain megabyte count. so if you've got an extensive scene you're writing i would constantly copy/paste to a word or text document of some sort or even email it to yourself because it'll just delete the history of the chat unless you pay a stupid amount of money for the ROOM not the actual account you've registered. it is very flexible for little things, though, and easily accessible when mobile on most smart phones. with that said if someone happens to find the room you're chatting in they can easily hop into it or simply stalk it. also, i've never heard of anyone using google docs for writing but it's a neat idea for sure. personally, i'm in one LJ group and i just use customs and threads there. IJ is where i'm a bit more flexible with my social sources.