Facebook To Launch Instant Messaging Service

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1. Ryan Merket
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:15 pm

   This is huge, thanks for the exclusive Michael. Off to twitter about it now!

2. Chris
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

   I’m glad it’s based on Jabber like Gtalk. It means that people can use pidgin. The MySpace one was stupid. Who needs another IM protocol? MySpace was doing chat like it was 1995.

3. Zaid
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

   Buh bye AIM.

4. Wayne Lambright
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

   Wow, that should be HUGE. I’m currently loving facebooks video email system.

5. Alaska Miller
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

   they should just buy out meebo. hell, just grant them 1% of that fake 15 billion valuation and it should be fine.

6. Jared White
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

   Wow, this is pretty seismic. I’ve used AIM on and off for years, but never really found it useful for my “social graph” since I don’t use any other AOL services and it’s a pain to use two completely different methods of communication (Facebook and AIM). If we can just do IM directly via Facebook, that makes things much more exciting!

7. Chris Thomson
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

   I can just see all of my MSN buddies from school ditch MSN (and Hotmail) and just use Facebook messages and Facebook IM (they don’t get any email from anything that NEEDS an email address).

8. Gaurav
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

   Mike - Did you get this info from those $25 hired-on-craigslist testers?

9. Paul Walsh
   

   March 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

   I hope they build a client and not just a chat and it’s then supported by Adium - don’t want another splinter group. I remember when I helped to launch AIM when I was at AOL. Those were the days - funny as I’m writing a post about my first failures (during that same period).

10. Ethan Bloch
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:26 pm

    This is brilliant. Instant IM platform with 60 million+ users. SHABAM!

11. Cangelor - The China Angel Investor
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    “This spells trouble for a slew of instant messaging services that third parties have built on Facebook. Social.IM, for example, is one (funded) startup we’ve written about a couple of times. Those applications are now basically dead.”

    I’m really sorry to know that. This is something Microsoft is good at. It is really bad for Facebook as such an new innovative startup to use such a dirty trick to kill another startup Social.IM who are building applications for it.

    Microsoft ISVs are quite familar with this. They provides you a platform to allow you to develop applications for that platform. They considers you as a part of their so named ecosystem. However, once they have found your application is too cool to miss it, you’re under threat: They will do the same thing and offer it for free and then you’re out. So from this point of view, they are the big brother of the ecosystem. You would be killed by them at any time when necessary.

12. Jeff O'Hara
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

    Even though i’m not a huge facebook user, IM is huge. Gtalk integrating aim made me not have to login to meebo anymore. Facebook could have the same effect for millions of users if they support multiple protocols.

    -Jeff

13. Alaska Miller
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

    Also, the amount of mistakes AOL made at cornering this market is staggering.

    First the inability to capitalize on AOL Profiles (friendster?), the insistence on closing off access (MSN is now dominant international, no what?), inability to capitalize on ICQ (skype?), the fiasco with AIMspace then AIMpages (myspace?), inability to realize that Away messages or AIM profiles (friendfeed and facebook) were addictive, and now in the middle of trying to metamorphosis into an Adsense competitor and legitimatizing the brilliant merger they’re trying to pretend they’re still relevant too by integrating yet another 850 million mistake.

    Randy Falco, you sir, are out of your elements. Yet another old media fart trying to pretend he has the balls to match wits with Silicon Valley. Not going to happen, maybe it’s best you just go back to greenlighting more shitty tv shows.

14. slartybardfast99
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

    you say that the existing facebook IM clients are all basicly dead. I’m sure one, probably Social.IM, will just jump onto the Open Social bandwagon and support other social networks.

15. MistOne
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    @11 - disagree with the ‘underhanded - microsoft-eqe comparison”, IM on fb seems logical and valuable - if users will love it and it helps fb grow and retain users then its just a smart move.

16. BA
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    Time to sign-up for yet another IM account. We need OpenIM - right?

17. AlexisR
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    At last… And what about real friend lists features to manage circles more acurately (family, friends, coworkers…) and so on…

18. Wills
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:48 pm

    Well this a pretty big deal.

    My real life social network is a million times more accurate on Facebook than it is on MSN Messenger.

19. Jaisen
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    A few points.

    1) Any FB app that’s successful and fits into facebook’s vision…they’ll recreate and win.
    2) Don’t see this being extremely disruptive. Sure I might use it but I won’t be abandoning other IM networks. IM networks are (or will be) moving towards being more open so facebook/aim/msn/y! … won’t matter. Which is how it should be anyways.
    3) Glad it’s built on Jabber…that makes perfect sense and is supported out of the bag by various IM clients.

20. sd
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

    @1,
    huge what? in what way?

21. Peter
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    Cool. Facebook grabs another chunk of our lives.

22. drew olanoff
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    I love this game!!!

    Brilliant Facebook.

23. Pascal Roy
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

    very cool! I can’t wait to see the impact this will have on the others.

24. Stephen Chinnadorai
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    I can see this being a hit, but only because everyone uses Facebook already. I doubt they will actually add anything innovative at all to IM. Desktop IM still has a better feel to it, and doesn’t require you to be on the website to use it. Also, doesn’t using Jabber limit their advertising revenue? I guess we’ll have to wait for these screenshots.

25. S
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    Why are people saying this is so brilliant?

    The day I joined Facebook in 2005 I wondered why they didn’t have an IM component. It was obvious.

    People outgrow AIM because of its foundation on dorky screennames. Facebook’s wont work if its web based. When I’m browsing facebook, I don’t want to be IMed.

    However, when I have AIM open, I want to be IMed. That’s why facebook should do this iwth a desktop app rather than web based IMO. And it should NOT show you online for IM unless you choose to be online for IM.

26. Dallas Gutauckis
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    Pretty good idea for them to use XMPP, especially with AIM building their XMPP daemon to interface with the AIM data. Now they can easily interface with AIM and GTalk without the needs for any kind of transport/gateway system.

27. Balke Macho
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    *Rant!*

    Am I the only one who isn’t strung out on Facebook fever? Facebook is well done. I do use it frequently — and see value — in being able to easily keep in contact with my real-life friends. But my visits are extremely short and uninteresting: login, check my notices, write some happy-bday wishes on a wall or two, leave. Maybe at 24 I am actually just too old, but it feels like a utility. It just feels like the excitement is gone. Maybe it’s because I never meet anyone new on Facebook and it resembles my dull life. Or, maybe apps (while a brilliant idea) are just spam-machines that add no value to me whatsoever, only annoyance. Who knows.

    What I do know is that I am not on there enough for IM to make sense. I always have Gmail open, so Gtalk is handy - I wonder how many people will use IM on Facebook? And is it really that awesome of an idea? Isn’t it just an obvious step in their path to being yet-another-token-social-network?

    (Note: I am happy they are using Jabber - Facebook does well when it comes to implementation decisions.)

28. Jeff
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:19 pm

    The application model is a very smart move for facebook

    It enables them to view in real time which apps and services are popular and what their customers want

    They then have the option to develop their own app based on the measured success of others with minimal risk

    IM has obviously been a popular app amongst facebook users

    How do you rate? Meet new people! http://www.yupnup.com

29. bloggo
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    great move, totally logical extension of facebook’s service - should also drive more traffic back to facebook.com.

    they should have twitterlike update functionality in the im client — basically get newsfeed alerts in your im.

30. rubyfu
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    It’s very nice but what is the point of opening up your platform if you don’t create opportunities for app developers ????

31. John Willis
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

    Hello,

    I am sitting here with my nine year old son and he just asked me how do I get to be #2 on Technorati. I am currently 45k. I told him I have no idea bit this guy surely does. Awaiting anxiously on your reply

    johnmwillis.com

32. blake
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

    @17 - Circle of Friends (http://apps.facebook.com/friendcircles/) allows users to manage their lists of friends. They have over 7 million users. I think that they could do more to help people manage their content within other applications. What do you think?

33. Steel
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    By the time FB rips off enough of their developer apps, and intergrates them, Face Book will be a bigger cluster fu*k then AOL at it’s heyday. Funny to hear someone worry about their ” social graph”. Kinda like the farmer selling watermelons at a loss. When asked how he would solve it, he replied” I guess I need a bigger truck”. FB is not making money and I don’t see they will anytime soon. FB is a world all it’s own and it will fall. Give it 12-18 months.

34. Anthony
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    This is the major issue with companies being built on the Facebook platform. Who is seriously funding facebook app companies? If you have a product that is remotely cool / valuable, facebook can simply build it into the core functionality. They will kill anything that becomes cool.

    This is great if you are a garage tinkerer, and like having your app used by tons of people. But I am still baffled by VC firms dumping money into apps that can easily be wiped out by the mothership simply cloning them.

    Can someone please explain this to me?

35. AlexisR
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    @31 That’s exactly my point of view.
    “Circle of friends” is an app, but the point is, soon FB will introduce a feature to sort your friends. They have already introduces Friend list… But I don’t think, it’s enough.

    Here is what you was written for months on http://www.facebook.com/whatsnew.php (unavailable now ???)

    “Sort out your friends.
    We’ll let you organize that long list of friends into groups so you can decide more specifically who sees what.”

    They wrote after :
    “Friend Lists Privacy
    You’ll be able to control visibility for your profile, photos, and more using your friend lists.”
    ( http://tinyurl.com/25whe9 )

    If I edit my status, the question is “is this status has to be seen by my coworkers or only my friend or I don’t care ?”… Hope, it’s coming.

36. Alaska Miller
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    @33

    It’s simple. If your name is Max Levchin you get to keep your toys on Facebook. Or if you happen to know any of the major VCs backing Facebook, you get to keep your toys. If not, well then, you just got punk’d by Marky Mark. Welcome to the real world, idiot, next time don’t spend so much time working for free for someone else.

37. Patelski
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    This isn’t brilliant at all….

    Come on, ANOTHER instant message service

    Fortunately I have Digsby, which is like trillian but better. Try it.

38. Don Wilson
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Awaiting screenshot, Mike. I’m sure you guys’ll find it!

39. Nick
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    Peter Thiel invested in Facebook AND Mogad/Social.im…

    Could there be more to the story?

40. Facebook Fanboy DM
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    “The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.”

41. Elder
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

    I hate Facebook and I hate IMing but put them together and you’ve got something attractive even for the Web 0.0 generation. So, I say — probably got legs…

42. Everett
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    Actually I would like to know what’s on the minds of other APP developers seeing how one of their brethren (Social.IM) getting annihilated by FB’s move.

43. Erhan Erdoğan
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

    Facebook will acquire social.im fb instant messenger. ; )
    wait some…

44. JosefVirek
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    Breaking News…. Facebook just released FaceBookOS and FacebookOffice free to all Facebook members!

45. kk
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    @25 I agree with you. Why are people so surprised ? Facebook has the power of a huge audience that is there to kill time and gossip. Facebook will continue to pull out such features/ apps to be a one stop social utility. But there is too much hype about social networking right now, people are amazed to see their old friends on it but this all temporary. Facebook is a toy, not a need like google, and people get bored with toys…. so if people think that facebook is the next google they are very wrong. Like the way social networking thing went up …. its going to go down in the same way,its going to be a domino effect when people start realizing that their friends are not active any more. Already I see alot of people getting bored of it, I dont think no matter how many applications facebook comes up with people will eventually get fed up and 5-6 years down the lane, social networking would be a thing of the past ! Just what happened to MIRC, friendster, Aol chat rooms etc etc….

46. JosefVirek
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    ….And Next Month, a Facebook Search Engine!

47. www.fantasysportsmatrix.com
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    awesome! take that AOL.

48. Erhan Erdoğan
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    @josefvirek
    u forgot the facebooktimes : )

49. Erhan Erdoğan
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    social.im didnt make a logo for fb instant messenger. why? : ))

50. Alex
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    Let this serve as a lesson to all those businesses that are looking to build applications around facebook’s closed network. You will get crushed. Facebook believes they can build everything (and probably can) so when you build a cool application all you are doing is getting your apps on a radar screen.

    You best move your business models to OpenSocial

51. Michael Arrington
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    updated post re Jabber.

52. Erhan Erdoğan
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

    facebook will not do any mistake; this plan is not related with its strategy. it wont be launch a new im, fb will acquire social.im - it s not possible, no one will work for facebook again , if it is true.
    trust me : )
    i m a social im evangelist ; )

53. Erhan Erdoğan
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    yep micheal : ) u are a good reason for suicide. : )

54. BillyBob
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

    GREAT, social networking and instant messaging. Want to add any other loss making businesses to the list?

55. JosefVirek
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

    BillyBob, wait for Facebook Pizza Delivery.

56. Erhan Erdoğan
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    @JosefVirek
    yes, it will be only 29 minutes pizza delivery : ) not 30 like dominos ; )

57. Andrew
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    In the ol’ days (when I was young ) Microsoft would buy companies that made great Windows add-ons.

    I guess Facebook have too many engineers and a desperation to make some money, so instead of saying ‘which is the best 3rd party app that does this task we’d like to integrate?’…they just go and make their own instead.

    A bit short-sighted I think…what exactly is the motivation for making a solid Facebook App if they’re just going to steamroller over you??

58. Dion Almaer
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    I really hope that they move beyond simple IM and do a true activity stream play like Face IM http://almaer.com/blog/face-im.....ph-outside

59. presty
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

    finnaly, facebook is moving towards something more concrete and over the ’social network’ hype

    imho, a social communication website is where the future lies
    somewhere where you can chat up with anyone and find out who they are and what they’re doing - think twitter + multi group im + social networks

    i think that would be the real thread to google et all

60. Steel
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

    @BillyBob
    They’re just gonna use a bigger truck now. LOL

61. Steel
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    This is funny. AOL once had over 22 million users and everyone was critical They brought instant messages to the forefront. People talked on IM and in their chatrooms 24/7/ FB is nothing but another glorified walled garden site. REPEAT……..FB will F A I L !
    AOL did monetize in a big way in their heyday. FB is still a money losing proposition and it always will be. At least AOL had paying members. Their revenue for a week was more than FB did all last year. Sure, AOL is history now, but those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it. Failure is almost a certainty for FB. Wait til the next new flavor of the month comes along, where will all their users be then. Sell out Zuck…while there is still some money for ya.

62. David Henderson
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

    Another IM… r u kidding me? Looks like NIH is pervasive over there.

63. david sl
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

    Another platform (web platform in this case) specific IM tool. Will enhance collaboration between Facebook users but the fun ends there, it may have jabbr support which opens to a few other IM networks but those are also closed platforms. So instead of hopping on one lilly pad us internet frogs will have our choice of 4 or 5…but what if we miss and land in the murky lake between the pads???

    The category killing revolution in web collaboration is fast on its way folks, this ain’t it.

    

64. patrick s
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

    I run a flirting app within Facebook that already integrates IM (with A/V) in all user profiles and site interactions. Users will definitely want privacy controls, like in my app (Human Pets http://humanpets.com) users can choose whether they want to appear online/offline, along with a secondary control of whether they want to be IM’ed or not by strangers. Often, users will just want to show they’re online without having to chat. It would be interesting to see if Facebook also integrate chatrooms once they have the IM capability. On another note, plentyoffish.com and myspace.com both use the same IM system from AOL, so it will be interesting to see how Facebook’s solution compares.

65. Kyle M.
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 7:35 pm

    I just spoke with Yanda from Social IM, and it sounds like he’s optimistic that this could actually HELP his company. Social IM does have a desktop client that could work in tandem with Facebook’s web-based IM. And it gives them a way to add all your friends to your buddy list instead of just a few Social IM users, which would be a huge plus. I posted about our conversation on AppScout.com.

66. Jonathan Silber
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 7:51 pm

    And just when we thought they couldn’t spam us any more than they do now.

67. Robert Einspruch
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

    If you read Facebook’s “About Us” section or look at the homepage after logging out, it reads the following:

    “Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.”

    So to many of the comments above, Mark Z. would absolutely agree that FB is first and foremost a utility and nothing more than that (and BTW, utilities tend to be pretty valuable). Also, it’s stated mission is to connect people. IM is no different than email or pokes in that respect.

    Regarding Social.im and if Facebook is being malicious, the real question to ask is why Social.im (and the likes) decided to build/invest in a product that basically has no defensible qualities? As many people have posted, this is so obvious, why did they go down this path in the first place? Innovate or die - they better make their product very compelling or they will have a reservation with TC’s DeadPool!

    On the plus side, go XMPP/Jabber!!

68. ze Mobile Phone
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

    Yeah this is going to be an interesting move for the other companies out there that currently do this.

    Facebook=1. Rest of world=0.

69. Solacetech
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

    OK, tested it. Here’s my results: http://www.myphillynetwork.com/content/socialim

70. Kevin
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 11:23 pm

    Wow…this is a good news… As it is integrated in to profile, i guess there be some restriction which allows users who can see the chat otherwise this could be a service called instant scrap …

71. Rekzai
    

    March 14th, 2008 at 11:43 pm

    Wow I’m actually pretty excited for this.

72. frank
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 12:12 am

    Truly amazing that people actually use that facebook crap and that so much fanboys are hanging around here. What is ‘very exciting’ about an IM? And it is not the first social network to do that either. This is not news, it is boring and frankly this facebook thing is getting stale. I hope MS buys it so they have another shit company for too much money hanging on their leg dragging them down.

    Anyway; as a company with these ‘revolutionary’ apps (99.99999% of which are complete and total crap and very worthless) it is competing with it’s customers which is a bad plan. Facebook should *stop* developing apps themselves and instead making it easier to integrate apps without that custom fbml / fbjs and still keeping it ’safe’ and fast.

73. aw
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 12:22 am

    An IM with applications … haha

74. James
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 12:45 am

    They probably won’t allow federation to other XMPP servers for fear of losing out on further monetizing the social graph.

75. Gaurav Kanoongo
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 12:57 am

    It would be so nice for users if they launch Jabber based service, and facilitate federation with other IM Networks using Jabber Transports.

76. jjjj
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 4:36 am

    is facebook really still all that cool and hot ?

    as most people in my school ( uk ) and friends all signed up when facebook was the must do thing and even grandparents were signing up to it but now have seemed to have lost interest.

    Facebook by the end of 2008 will be renamed faebomb.

    enjoy the fame whilst it lasts zuck

77. Serviced apartments bangalore
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 4:52 am

    I am looking forward to this… but I hope it doesn’t slow down facebook.. as it is with all that javascript floating around.. it is a little slow to load these days.

78. Monica Willyard
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 6:02 am

    Ugh. Another form of messenger to contend with. I’m getting to the point where I would rather just pick up the phone. Susan is on AIM. Mary uses MSN. John will only use Skype. Karen uses MySpace. God forbid that I might need to tell all of these people something at the same time. I don’t want another IM, especially one that’s on the Facebook site. That site is already becoming cluttered and slower over time. Keeping up with which friend is where is becoming a real chore.

79. Hagia-Sophia.net
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 6:49 am

    Let’s wait to laught and then I will see how it goes…

    Google effort didn’t go very well… This can be also a bubble…

80. Seraphiel
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 7:01 am

    Now this is where the power of Jabber/XMPP will show to it fullest. It is ridiculously easy to implement this with Jabber/XMPP. You know… there is a reason why Google-talk is based on Jabber.

    Facebook would do a very, very stupid move to not base its IM service on Jabber.

81. Maple3
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 9:33 am

    Guess thats pretty cool!

82. Sneezy Melon
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 10:12 am

    And do we need any more??

83. XMPPfederation
    

    March 15th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

    As long as they federate it (which it would be stupid not to), you won’t need another account. Nobody has really got the young generation using Jabber/XMPP yet, and its about time that IMs start moving to an open platform. Hopefully Facebook will be able to do this finally… I’d love to be able to get rid of AIM and MSN and just have a single account that can talk talk to people on other networks. I hate the lock-in BS and having to use 3 IM networks is such a waste of time and resources and complicates life

    If XMPP really takes off, there is a lot of potential for interesting new products to be made taking advantage of its openness… I’d love for XMPP to replace email too… I’m dreaming though, that would be too intelligent.

84. Wes Mahler
    

    March 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am

    There are alot of people who I’ve met over FB, and a nice quick IM would definitely make the application alot more richer, quicker and to the point with the ability to chat live.

    Cool, Facebook.

    Ouch, for FB Apps.

85. Sam
    

    March 16th, 2008 at 9:55 am

    There are other IM clients which will be taken out by this first, because they are not an installed application (imo.im is one example).

    Social.IM will probably be the next causality since it is super buggy (just read the comments on their app page) only support Windows XP or higher and the Mac, if you are willing to hack someone else Mac client.

    I did find another IM client (http://apps.facebook.com/yapper_im) that is much more stable with more IM feature as well as public chat rooms which might a big enough differentiator to keep Facebook at bay… Though probably not given that Facebook will keep charging down this path.

86. Bob Wyman
    

    March 16th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

    Building an IM service without support for Jabber/XMPP is simply evil. The only possible reason for not using Jabber/XMPP is if one wishes to steal “network effects” from the Internet as a whole and trap them within a walled-garden.

    Services that avoid IETF and other community standards in order to steal from the Internet as a whole should be labeled as what they are: Evil.

    bob wyman

87. Calen
    

    March 17th, 2008 at 1:19 am

    smart move by Facebook - this was long overdue. as an FB-app-dev, this is a little scary (given they aren’t acquiring Social.IM) - however, it’s the nature of the business.

88. Steve
    

    March 17th, 2008 at 5:02 am

    It will be interesting to see the privacy policy on this. If it is similar to gchat, is it all going to be logged for later searching as well? Will the text be allowed to be crawled for keywords for products you might be interested in? It would seem that people already have too much information about themselves on Facebook, without using their standard chat client. A much better idea would be to continue to use a third-party client. At least, on some level there is some distance between your chat and your profile.

89. Indian Premier League
    

    March 17th, 2008 at 10:30 pm

    Great Move!

90. larry
    

    March 20th, 2008 at 9:48 am

    Facebook will be crawling the chat sessions for advertising info.

    Users are growing distrustful of social networking sites (with good reason http://www.internetevolution.c.....src=flfone)

    And after beacon, I’m weary of the new chat program.