When Facebook's chat application launched in April, many felt it would be the beginning of the end for desktop instant messaging programs like AOL's AIM.

Around 60 percent of Facebook members have used the chat feature and AOL saw a 4 percent decline in unique visitors for the year ending in September, according to comScore.

Last week, Microsoft began integrating its Windows Messenger program into its Windows Live email service to create a social network. And with the growing popularity of integrated IM clients, such as Google's Gmail, AOL could start seeing bigger declines.

"Activity [in AIM] is going down because of all the different sites available," David Liu, SVP of AOL People Networks, told BusinessWeek. "So we're working on making AIM more social and viral." AOL plans to integrate AIM with its Bebo social network early next year.

None of these strategies necessarily herald the death of instant messaging -- in fact, IM traffic will grow 43 percent to 711 million users by 2011, according to The Radicati Group. But the IM facelift could be a boon for marketers, who have largely ignored IM.

A recent campaign for Havaianas sandals on Meebo, an IM-based social network, proved that website-based IMs offer potential, and Yahoo's IM application has 16 million users who are already served contextual ads within the IM client.