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IRC won't be going away any time soon. I hang out on 5 or 6 different networks.
Its used heavily in the open source development world... it provides easy on-the-spot interaction between developers, or even users and developers... it can be great for help technical issues for topics of interest, especially in computing (and sometimes not-so-great).
There's just something a little different about its style, compared with instant messaging, google chats, facebook chats, etc. Nothing else quite matches it. You don't necessarily have something of interest to say to an individual on your contact list, but sometimes you can offer it up to the channel, somebody bites, and a conversation starts, real time. You don't quite get that with anything else... twitter, facebook, sorta.. but not quite the same.
Its always been a haven for pirates too... if they ever manage to shut down bit torrent sites and the like, IRC will still be going strong with all the music, movies and software that you can eat..
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