In today’s world your social presence is your presence in a number of networking sites/services. So every one is in a lookout for a software that can let you access all your social networks. Pidgin with a few plugins is a solution. Pidgin is an IM client available for Linux as well as Windows. It supports Google Talk, Yahoo!, MSN, IRC,  MySpaceIM, AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu,  Groupwise, ICQ,  QQ , SILC , SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP ,  and Zephyr chats by default. Thats almost all the chat services that people probably ever would use. Now, the following Plugins will let you extend the reach and power that Pidgin already has.

1. Facebook Chat

You can get this plugin from http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-facebookchat/.

2. Microblog-purple

Pidgin-microblog is a collection of plugins for Pidgin. It implements microbloging systems to Pidgin. Currently it supports Twitter, Identi.ca, and Status.net based servers through the conversation windows. The package also contains a plugin called twitgin that enables twitter’s retweet, reply, and favorite tweet feature.

You can get this plugin from  http://code.google.com/p/microblog-purple/ .

3. Auto-Reply Plugin

This plugin lets you put up an away message in case you are AFK (Away from keyboard). It provides you with options of how and when to activate the auto-reply. This plugin is comes with Pidgin by default.

4. Nick said and IRC helper

These plugins come in handy while using Pidgin to chat on an IRC channel. IRC helper will remove largely useless messages that pop up in an IRC chat. Nick said will alert you when your nick is said in a chat. Its a default plugin available in Pidgin.

5. Text Replacement

You can use this plugin to chat faster and assign short-forms to the most commonly used words. Its automatic and efficient and comes with option to remove text replacements in such cases. This plugin too comes by default with Pidgin.

There are even more cool plugins available. You may feel them better. So browse here.

You can activate these cool plugins from Tools > Plugins. Just tick the check box and configure them if needed.