MSN Messenger for collaboration

I have looked over the new version of MSN messenger and it reminds me of the differences between MS Word 6.0 and 2003. There are a load of new features that I would love to play with if I had the time. However, there is no real business need that drives me towards it. I am also not a big fan of video calling and would prefer reliable Voip that you can clearly hear each word the other person is saying.
I have wanted to create a projectlounge "secretary"” or "“clerk"”. It would be some kind of automated attendant that would take messages, file attachments or record online meetings into your secure online collaboration space. That way, if you have a file you quickly want to share with the team, you can ping your secretary who would see that it is uploaded and filed for you.
This could be expanded beyond files onto other command driven tasks with some more complexity. I started coding this in skype and was able to read in text into a workplace but it would not do it very neatly and had some scalability issues. We already have skype in our open source lite project, so it was easy to play with but not ready for prime time yet.
I end up using both skype and messenger in my daily work life and flip between them without too much thought.