So maybe it's not a better mousetrap, but...
LJ recently came out with "Gizmo for LJ Talk". My guess is that very few people care. There are already several good free chat networks, and everyone you know already has AIM. Gizmo also does voice chat, but everyone who'd voice chat with you online already has Skype. "Gizmo for LJ Talk" probably isn't about LJ wanting to leverage their user base to compete with AIM and Skype, though. I'd wager Gizmo said "We'll give you 20% of the money we earn from LJ users that upgrade to Gizmo's premium services: Call In, Call Out, and Area 775", and LJ said "Um... Sure!"
Since "LJ Talk" is jabber, if you use Trillian Pro or Gaim, just add username@livejournal.com using your LJ password, and you're logged in. Your LJ friends download as Jabber friends automagically, which is nice. Best of all, someone can mouseover your user icon and see if you're online. It's a nice feature, but they could've shown AIM status on mouseover just as easily, and I wish they would have.
(I originally had a caveat about the dangers of cleartext auth and packet sniffers, but Trillian uses digest auth, so no worries there.)
Since "LJ Talk" is jabber, if you use Trillian Pro or Gaim, just add username@livejournal.com using your LJ password, and you're logged in. Your LJ friends download as Jabber friends automagically, which is nice. Best of all, someone can mouseover your user icon and see if you're online. It's a nice feature, but they could've shown AIM status on mouseover just as easily, and I wish they would have.
(I originally had a caveat about the dangers of cleartext auth and packet sniffers, but Trillian uses digest auth, so no worries there.)