I think the sidebar has too many menus. We should show only 3-4 menus, and place the rest under "More" Also, in the message list, it would be nice to have an option to hide the last message displayed below the user's name. I don't want others to see my last message.

I was thinking on moving to your style of icon + text in horizontal and add the chat right there too. So, everything becomes a double pane design... Because we will put a lot more things in that menu.. just the different relay feeds alone will be huge.