I'd like to learn more about the behavior of people that have more than 150 people on an IM buddylist. As a potential indicator of change MSN Scobleizer and AIM have recently increased the allowable size of their buddylist. AIM doubled theirs from 150 to 300.

While my list of buddies is too distributed across AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Skype to have reached any thresholds, I recently learned from my 12 year old daughter that AIM was limiting her list and she was dumping names. (Many of these kids have more than one handle.)

Not everyone will be happy about bigger buddylists. Is this an interesting early warning signal? When IM lists contain the contact names and information approaching 150 people will the utility be way ahead of e-mail? I think so! Where's the tipping point? Is it an organization size? Is it the size of your network? For my 12 year old it has already tipped with e-mail hardly ever used.

There's another post in this, and it has got to do with interruptions, presence, availability etc. For another day.