Yes, this is something well known. Chat platforms have long since been used as botnet infrastructures. IRC is/was a big one for a long time because it's very lightweight and the protocol is well known (with a little know-how you can completely IRC over telnet). The only reason it's been ditched is because it's so heavily centralized -- loose the C&C server and you lose control, unless you have a way to push updates. That's why fast-flux DNS became popular.

In other news, water is wet, the sky is blue, etc. etc.