Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0
Facebook Chat goes live -- for some users
As expected, Facebook is beginning to roll out a chat feature. This weekend some users noticed the chat functionality showing up on their Facebook pages. But this appears to be a phased rollout, as many users still don't have the ability to chat with their Facebook contacts in real time. You know, unless they use a third party service like Social.im or Babuki.The Facebook chat service appears to be nicely integrated with the site. Users will notice some chat controls at the bottom of their Facebook page letting them know how many users are online. You can pull up a list of your friends and send them messages from any page on the site. If you accidentally close a window, Facebook will keep track of your history and show older messages when you launch a new chat with the same contact. But if you close the page entirely, you're out of luck since there does not appear to be a way to save your entire chat history.
Honestly, we're more impressed with third party services like Social.im and Babuki which use Facebook's API to provide a standalone chat client that can be used without keeping Facebook's web page open in a browser all day. But we get the feeling that plenty of folks will use the official Facebook chat client simply because it's there and easy to use.
[via Inside Facebook]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Oneiroi said 1:20PM on 4-07-2008
"Honestly, we're more impressed with third party services like Social.im and Babuki which use Facebook's API to provide a standalone chat client that can be used without keeping Facebook's web page open in a browser all day."
Really?
The reason I loved google talk when it was integrated to the website, was that I could easily message people who usually didn't have messenger programs.
I didn't have to hope they had anything special installed, and it was easier than downloading a new program and have it running all the time. It's the one reason I never really got around to using myspace's message thing.
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Brad Linder said 1:21PM on 4-07-2008
Good point. I guess what I'd really like is an option to download desktop client that will let you chat with Facebook users whether or not they have download the client. Much the way Google Talk works with the Gmail chat feature.
Techbuzzard said 6:57PM on 4-22-2008
There is a third party desktop application for Facebook called VisualSage. VisualSage provides easy access to many Facebook's primary functions, including Facebook notification, message, poke, profile, and photo browsing. The application provides chatting functionality, which allows you to instant communicate with your friends on Facebook. You can also arrange and optimize your network by grouping your friends to subnets. Application is built on Microsoft's new WPF technology and shows all your friends at Facebook in a network. I have tried this utility and it has a very nice interface and its very user friendly. Check this link to read more:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=9382373185
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