If you’re like me and split most of your “online time” between your smartphone, your computer’s chat client and your Facebook/LinkedIn page, Nimbuzz may be for you. It’ll make all those communications smoother.

My Facebook friends sometimes leave me wall messages that I take forever to respond to when I’m running between Paris and Vienna. Now they can call me or chat with me directly via a widget embedded on my Facebook profile page. The Nimbuzz widget detects presence and shows if I’m online. If I’m offline, Nimbuzz also includes a “Buzz” feature to alert me that people are trying to reach me.

The head spins with the potential for abuse of this well-intentioned feature, though. Calling me from overseas from a PC? Nimbuzz can help. Sending international SMS? No problem, you can use Nimbuzz. Theoretically, you could use some combination of Meebo/ebuddy/Trillian, Skype, Fring and your phone’s native IM/text messaging to do all that, but Nimbuzz packages it well and makes it simple! Simplicity comes from the unified interface across devices; I don’t have to import IM contacts into Skype and vice versa, for example.

While lots of companies are working on some combination of voice and IM features, Nimbuzz’s differentiation is its support for a wide variety of mobile handsets (currently at 1000 devices with native support for Symbian, Java and Windows Mobile) and good integration with several other social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Windows Live, Google Talk, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ and many other more.

I downloaded the Nimbuzz social networking widget here, which made it brain-dead easy to add a Facebook application to my profile page. I was then able to send messages and files from Facebook to the mobile phone Nimbuzz client installed on my Nokia.

Call quality using Skype or Nimbuzz’ online widget really went beyond my expectations (as I am a former disappointed fring user): the sound is just as clear and crispy as if I were calling from Skype on a desktop.

Nimbuzz’s last to date release features everything and the kitchen sink: It provides PC to PC/mobile calling, IM aggregation across several communities, group chat and conferencing, free voicemail, file sharing, a Facebook/LinkedIn application, a social networking and email call/chat widget, a WAP site, a Symbian/Windows mobile application as well as a desktop program. It also goes without saying that the company is working on an iPhone-specific version.

Now the mobile version of Nimbuzz convinced me, I’ll probably head for the PC version to benefit from the same “one login, one contact list, all accounts” feature.

Related posts:

1. Skype Beta Now Available To Nokia S60 Mobile Phones!
2. Cheap VoIP telephony using Sipdroid
3. mobile phone invoice: “What’s the butcher’s bill for this month?”
4. Skype and Nokia partner to integrate Skype into Nokia devices
5. Spotify goes mobile on Nokia phones!