regarding sharing im pass to a third party provider, i don't get your mind; it is already the case if you are using skype client, or if you have a web mail. for me, the possibility to use skype im and basic functionalities without the skype client is really good because you can log in everywhere on every machine (a real alternative when i am at my office where i can't install skype client on my computer); i was using tokbox yesterday in order to see what i can get out of it, and the quality of communication is not too bad (excellent video quality, sound is ok)