Facebook Chat - Just Another “Instant Message-Like” Application?

Facebook has been on it hard for the last couple months to create a platform for it’s users that let’s us chat back and forth in real-time.

Like I wrote in my last post about Twitter vs. Facebook… people like REAL-TIME… and I really believe it’s a huge key in the success of any type of communication tool.

I’m sure if you could send someone a package through FedEx in “real-time” (i.e. - some type of teleporter for packages… “When you absolutely have to get it there in 5 seconds”), you’d rather do that than send it by FedEx overnight… which would take 8 hours to get there.

We are an impulse and instant gratification nation… and Facebook has finally done the right thing to quench this thirst that people have.

Facebook Chat Launches This Week…

Thanks to Mashable and DoshDosh (via Twitter) for the heads up on the Facebook Chat announcement. Basically, the Facebook blog says that the new Facebook Chat will be a bit like this:

• A 1 to 1 chat (not 1 to many like Twitter) similar to AIM or Gtalk
• Easy collapsible frame so you can get it out of your way when you’re not using it
• Does not save your chat convo’s for very long… and you can immediately delete the chat history if you want
• Cool updates right in the Chat Bar of the mini-feed of the friend you are chatting w/ (kinda cool sounding… let’s see how useful it is)

There are a few other things. Head over to the Facebook blog to learn a bit more.

Overall…

Overall, I’m excited that Facebook is getting with the trend and going real-time with some of their things.

Where the Facebook chat will be cool is now you can go to one place to have an instant 1 on 1 chat with your friends. Nowadays, most of my friends and those in my network are on Facebook… but it sometimes sucks trying to instant message them because some use AIM… others use Gtalk… others use MSN Chat… and on and on.

I simply don’t want to have 3 or 4 chat clients up and running all of the time… pain in the ass. But, now I can chat w/ my friends all right there in Facebook… and can get rid of my other chat clients one by one (maybe… we’ll see ;-).

Leading up to this launch people were speculating what the Facebook chat was going to be about… and so far it doesn’t seem like it will really directly compete with Twitter in the 1 to many “crowd convo” style.

So, I’m excited to see what the Facebook chat has in store… and see how I can integrate it into the rest of my overall Social Media toolbox to build and maintain better relationships with my friends and network.

Hey, shoot me a message in Facebook Chat once it launches… I’d love to hear from you and see what you think about it… and whether you like it or not.

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