This is the software equivalent of a socially disabled person. When I receive a new IM, there's almost no visible clue as to what just happened. No pop-ups, no message window opening automatically. Or, if something does open, it's minimized. The messages hide themselves pretty well, thereby managing to go unnoticed until it's too late.

MAKE THE APPLICATION LOUDER!

 _      ___   _   _  ____   _____  ____   _  _  _ 
| |    / _ \ | | | ||  _ \ | ____||  _ \ | || || |
| |   | | | || | | || | | ||  _|  | |_) || || || |
| |___| |_| || |_| || |_| || |___ |  _ < |_||_||_|
|_____|\___/  \___/ |____/ |_____||_| \_\(_)(_)(_)


What's the purpose of a messaging application that makes it hard to notice you actually have a message?

You need to rethink your user interface from ground up. Until you do so and implement the changes, I'm switching back to Pidgin.