Thanks gidzzz! This will be a huge improvement over using the mobile web interface in MicroB. Funnily enough, I was thinking of having a go at building this for the N900 the other day after I found it works well on desktop. Has anyone tried using this together with telepathy-haze? This would eliminate the requirement for Pidgin.

Yes, I shamefully admit that I use Facebook Chat/Messenger. It seems to be the second most used IM tool by the outside world (after WhatsApp which we don't have for the N900). I might have a look at building the Hangouts plugin or Slack plugin which I also hate but which I'm forced to use for work.