IM BBS
About
IM BBS is a simple system to provide numerous functions using an instant messenger connection. The system is based on Gaim and Perl. All parts of it are available under the GNU GPL.
Protocols
Feel free to connect and try it out.
AIM/ICQ: 
imbbsa
Yahoo!: im_bbs
MSN: im_bbs@hotmail.com
Google Talk: imbbsa@googlemail.com
Note that different protocols allow different text style and http reference options. I recommend Google Talk and AIM/ICQ as they are the least restrictive.
Screenshot
Functions
There are a number of fucntions currently available. The full list of available functions can be accessed with the "help" command.
News
The News function subscribes you to news RSS channels. These are scanned every 5 minutes and any new stories are sent directly to your messenger. Sending "news" on its own will present your current subscription status. To subscribe type:
news subscribe NEWS_WILDCARD
where NEWS_WILDCARD is a name of a news feed or a wildcard of it e.g. BBC* subscribes you to all BBC feeds. To unsubscribe use:
news unsubscribe NEWS_WILDCARD
e.g. news unsubscribe * unsubscribes from all feeds.
Dictionary/Spell/Leet/Soundex
These functions allow a string to be processed in a number of ways. The dict command looks up the dictionary definition of a word. It can also present a number of additional dictionary databases which contain information about a word. To select a different database execute the dict command with a different database in square brackets e.g. dict [wn] hello. The spell command lists all words which were presented that were not found correctly spelled along with suggestions. leet converts a string into leet speek, and soundex converts a word into a soundex index.
New Functions
New functions will appear in the system as they are developed. Because the whole thing is written in Perl it doesn't take much add new functions as most of the code is written for you and you just need to take it out of CPAN.
Source
The source is in 2 files. The fetch RSS script and the Gaim plugin.