We don't usually involve ourselves with questions sent to advice columnists, since the advice columnist genre is all used up. But as a public service, we feel compelled to address the matter of Handling Mistaken Sexy Instant Messages.

In Britain, the death panel NHS commonly makes you wait a year to see a shrink, so some people just chat with therapists over instant messenger. Go figure: It actually works. So what about Tumblr, and so forth?

Taking questions after a speech before the New America Foundation, Google cofounder Larry Page told the crowd the reason Microsoft and Yahoo shouldn't merge is that it would give Microsoft too much control over email and instant messaging. "90 percent of the communications all in one company, I think that's a really big risk." We totally agree! So when will Google open its search results pages to third-party advertisements?

Facebook is building a Jabber/XMPP interface for Facebook Chat, which means users can access their Facebook friends list from other instant messaging clients such as Trillian, Apple's iChat or Pandion, not just the Facebook website. [Facebook Developers' Feed]

Hey guys, big news from the University of Oxford Press Blog today. Big news. The internet and cell phones have changed—possibly even revolutionized—the way kids keep in touch with one another. Instead of catching up with acquaintances, people just follow their away messages. (Note: I'm almost positive away messages have something to do with Instant Messaging, which is like a faster form of email, but I'm not 100%.) And sometimes people use their cell phones not to talk but to send text messages, a form of written communication sent through phones. Oh, and also this is rotting the very foundations of civilized society. More ground-breaking news after the jump.

The way people talk publicly about Facebook's application platform, you'd think Jesus used it to invite his apostles to the Last Supper. But some industry insiders quietly say they're not at all impressed with the applications people have developed. "None of the most popular apps actually do anything," a high-ranking Yahoo developer recently told Valleywag. It's hard to disagree: "Top Friends"? "Food Fight"? But Facebook's cornucopia of uselessness may gain some measure of utility on Friday. Friendvox, a new Facebook instant-messaging tool, is going into beta then, according to Blognation UK. It turns your roster of friends, instantly, into a buddy list, and lets you exchange messages without the tedious back-and-forth of Facebook's built-in email system. It's a great idea — so great that we're sure that Facebook will, in short order, steal this idea for itself and build IM functions into the site.