WeChat!

WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia and yes, those phones can all message each other! Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends.

With Viber, everyone in the world can connect. Freely. More than 460 million Viber users text, make HD-quality phone and video calls, and send photo and video messages worldwide over WiFi or 3G - for free. Viber Out can be used to make calls to non-Viber landlines and mobile numbers at low rates. Viber is available for many smartphones and platforms.

Riot (formerly Vector) is an opensource interoperable app running on Web, iOS and Android. It is built around chat rooms, both public and private and provides messaging, filesharing, voice and video conferencing (beta on Android and web), integrations to tools like GitHub, Jira, Jenkins and much more soon. Vector is built on the Matrix.org open standard which provides bridges to other systems such as Slack, IRC and a lot more soon. One can use the hosted service or run their own. »

Facebook Messenger is a faster way to message. Reach friends right on their phones, get and send messages fast, message everyone at once and more.

Franz is a free messaging app / former Emperor of Austria and combines chat & messaging services into one application. Franz currently supports Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe, Skype and many more. You can download Franz for Mac, Windows & Linux.

ICQ is one of the oldest instant messengers. First developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis, sold to AOL, sold again and currenly owned by the Russian "mail.ru" group (known for one of the largest social networks). ICQ has been redesigned and is totally different from the "old ICQ". It's available for almost every platform: Web, Desktop, Mobile and even via WAP.

Conversations is a privacy focused, open source XMPP Texting [Jabber] client for Android 4.0+ smart phones with wife-approved easy encryption [OTR, OMEMO, or GPG].

FaceTime is a video calling software feature developed by Apple for the iOS and Mac OS.