I use IRC for just about everything. I run ZNC (1) on my server to maintain a 24/7 presence on multiple IRC networks, and use a combination of Irssi in a screen session and AndChat on my Android devices to connect to ZNC. I also wrote a ZNC module to send highlight and pm notifications to my phone using Notifo (1), and even chat over AIM and Google Talk through my IRC client using Bitlbee (1). Its a somewhat complicated setup, but makes me really happy and does exactly what I want it to do.