When I am home and awake, my computer is almost always turned on. Then, Instant Messaging is always open. This is my way of being connected to my family and friends. My nieces can IM me questions about their homework, ranks on the latest track meet or score from the last tennis match, my parents can tell me how much snow fell at home, or my older brothers can tell me how cool the 99 degrees is in Phoenix. To me, IM is about staying connected to those I love.
We use Windows Live Messenger and Skype the most often. During our parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration in December, we used Windows Live Messenger plus a webcamera for a relative who could not attend the day's festivities. It wasn't the same as being there in person, but it was a great way to be involved.
With the Ultra-Mobile PC I want to carry it with me and broadcast information to more people more often. Many times it is family oriented, such as the party example. What if we had had several family members who couldn't come - how would we have had to handle that? Or how could we have made it easier to braodcast from CES as we did? Layne's arm sure got sore carrying around the Gateway Tablet PC plus webcamera. Stickam was easy to use, but we kept running into situations where we were pushing the edge on technology.
UMPCs push the edge of technology too. I want devices to communicate wirelessly, remotely. Most UMPCs have two USB ports. This seems fine when you're at a desk and can connect to a dock. But move away and still try to video IM. What happens? I want a wireless webcamera. I want a wireless microphone. I want an audio mixing station. The kids want a IM to be a mobile karaoke app (they talk about music a lot) that they can carry with them up and down the stairs or in the backyard, all to chat with their friends. Mobility pushes the limits.
That said, Windows Live Messenger and Skype are both usable on UMPCs today. And true to the benefit of a full-featured operating system like Windows Vista, IM can be in the background or at the front of what you are doing, and is flexible enough to change priorities without having to change the machine. Here are a few screenshots:

Contact list in landscape mode
On most UMPCs, landscape mode is 800x480. On an average notebook the resolution is 1024x768. So as you can imagine, you just get to scroll up and down your contact list. Group your contacts well, sort offline people out to save on prime real estate. Four or five contacts are usally visible and by sorting this way, I can get those who I IM with most often to the top of the list.

Portrait mode
The UMPC is rougly the size of standard paperback books. I frequently use the UMPC in portrait mode. Portrait mode on a UMPC is 480x800 -- not exactly common, so I expect to run into some issues with screen size fit. Webcameras viewing definitely pushes the limit of portrait mode. It would be great if the layout could move around a little. Here is a screenshot of IM fullscreen in portrait.

IM in portrait mode
Unfortunately the video and text content arrangement is a little odd. Notice that the text entry area is extremely limited. Luckily, we usually use audio chat, so the text entry area can go unused for minutes at a time.
Nevertheless, I think this example is a good reminder to designers about how uses can change the way someone wants to use an application.
Instant messaging is super easy on a UMPC. It definitely tops my most frequently used and relied upon scenario because it has allowed me to stay connected to my family, despite the thousands of miles inbetween.
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What Is New in Tablet PCs and UMPCs.