Facebook chat is not about replacing your IM, its about connecting with people in realtime.
This morning I got a flurry of chats popping up as soon as I opened Facebook. The new chat feature went live. Well, for me it went live this morning as it is the first time i’ve seen it and I’m not a huge Facebook fan. 
Vince mentioned to me “this changes everything”. Although it pains me to say so, it truly does! Henre said, “yeah it seems nice. however, don’t foresee competition for gmail etc.”. I agree, but I don’t think it is intended to be competition for them. See, Facebook has one purpose, and one purpose only for me. It connects me to friends, colleagues, people I admire and people I’ve met. In other words, it is about networking.
Facebook is not a source of information to me. I don’t visit Facebook to try and find a way to deploy and optimize Ruby on Rails! It is merely a place where I can connect with people.
Now, Facebook chat raised the bar significantly. I can now connect with people in real time. I no longer have to send the messages and wait for them to respond in a couple of hours or more. I can chat to them then and there. No other social network, as far as my knowledge goes, can say that. That is quite significant! Others are bound to follow, I’m sure, as it is quite a handy feature.
Yes, I might not like Facebook all that much, but I sure think they’re doing Social Networking right. Definitely.
On a different note, I see that there is talk about them supporting the XMPP or Jabber protocol. For those that do not know, that is the same protocol Twitter uses. We can look forward to Twitter being integrated into Facebook chat soon! I think I’d like that…
Now, as aalaap asked on Twitter: ” facebook chat.. does it let you poke bite and give stupid gifts to ppl while chatting?” Lets hope not. Facebook has done something good here. Lets hope that they don’t go and completely spoil it by allowing shit like that!
14 Comments to "Facebook chat is not about replacing your IM, its about connecting with people in realtime."
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Looks like we’re some of the first to blog about this. Good post!
Thanks Jayz.
Aaargh … you early worms - the birds will get you still. I totally failed to notice the chat this morning and now I’m stuck in class where Facebook is blocked *damn* … all of a sudden I can’t wait to get back to the office. I was really looking forward to the launch too, it does speed things up considerably. If you see a Facebook friend online and wish to communicate, you also don’t have to hope they see your mail before they wander off. Instant gratification … isn’t that what everyone’s after these days.
Google Talk also uses XMPP/Jabber. Will they? Won’t they? You do the math.
[...] has written an insightful post highlighting that he doesn’t necessarily think that Facebook chat is trying to compete with [...]
Stii,
Yeah, it’s great enhancement to social networking no doubt.
The message was slightly misconstrued. There was some debate on twitter on whether Facebook chat will outdo GTalk and of course, my response was no.
It’s a great idea, and one which many would like. I don’t visit Facebook much and only go there when I receive a message notification in my inbox.
So for me personally, the last thing I’d want is to log in and find 20 unanswered chats. Now if only the chat applet could be live and open even when Facebook isn’t ala GTalk, SKype etc, that would be nifty.
Just another distraction, but hey, we chose to be in this industry.
Great post Stii, yip it does change everything. I find I am using Facebook more and more and this adds huge value. I cant tell you how many times I have started with Facebook then opened skype to chat to somebody now I can do it in one go. Love it, great move on facebook’s part. Is my space concerned yet? I wonder?
[...] a pack of roller towel with me when I read about Facebook Chat with all the slobber coming from the blogs raving about it. Before I continue I’ll just point out that when I think about Facebook [...]
Thanx chaps! And yes, Tres, I think MySpace guys are scrambling around and drawing plans on boards…
Shaun, good point. We’ll have to wait and see, I suppose. Although, Google don’t own XMPP, so they might argue that.
So true. I actually just BLURTED and MOANED about facebook and the chat on another BLOG before coming across yours.
You’re right it’s about SKYPE or MSN competition. It’s about being connected and connected quickly. Great app. I take back what I said on the other BLOGS
[...] you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!There have been some questions and comments about my position on this so here goes. Two weeks ago when Mark skyped me to ask if I thought they [...]
great post Stii - i couldn’t agree more with Vincent, it does change everything… I too had been a backslider on Facebook, but now the lure of chatting real time is immense. I couldn’t agree more on the ‘” facebook chat.. does it let you poke bite and give stupid gifts to ppl while chatting?” though.. that will take me straight back to being a backslider!!
Nice post… I definitely agree with your point at the end about FB not allowing junk like free gifts and other seemingly useless do-dads cluttering up, what’s already, a wonderfully brilliant feature. Chat beats the pants off the Inbox - which seems to take longer and longer to load now.
[...] Mayer sure got that one right - and as everyone is busy explaining your Facebook contacts are different from your normal IM contacts. In my own experience [...]