Ask the Community: How Do You Feel About Facebook Chat?
The much awaited Facebook Chat launched today for all users (read more here). Now that all of you have had a few hours or so to play around with Facebook’s latest feature I was wondering what you think of it. Here are some suggested topics to cover:
Will Facebook Chat increase your usage of Facebook?
Do you like Facebook Chat’s features?
Will Facebook Chat hurt other instant messenger services (AIM, yahoo chat, ICQ and such)
Enough from me, what do you think?
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April 23rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I personally find the implementation to be too intrusive. The other difference is that I am not logged into Facebook all-day (I’m not alone in this), so the chat isn’t all that useful anyways.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I like the notifications that show up next to the chat more than the chat itself. I don’t really have a reason to use the Facebook chat. I think that any chat that has no API or doesn’t play well with others isn’t going to be as successful as its predecessors (Google chat, AIM, etc.).
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
The biggest positive that I have found is that it allows me to instantly connect to some people that I wasn’t instantly connecting with before. I also like that it keeps conversations that were in progress even if you accidentally close the FB window out of habit.
@Michael Kwan - I agree they could have implemented it a little better.
@Jon Bishop - I am also a fan of the notifications down below.
- AJ
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I think it will hurt other competitors, but I think chat as a whole seems to be dying these days. People like the asynchronous (like email and Twitter). Having to constantly be tethered to a computer is no fun.
And then there’s also the defaulted opt-out, which always irks me.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I agree with AJ that it helps users connect with people they might not normally connect with. It provides a way to send a quick question or bit of information to someone without dealing with messages, which in my opinion end up looking like letters and are too formal.
Not sure how much I’ll use the feature as I’m pretty well situated with AIM for messaging, but I think they executed it pretty well (other than the fact that it is kinda intrusive as you guys mentioned). At the end of the day it gets people talking about facebook and that is what counts I guess.
Expect a strong negative backlash at first (just like the news feed) but then I think people will eventually embrace it.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I think it’s a master stroke by Facebook. Now you have a reason to be on Facebook all the time. Facebook turns into a much more dynamic, constantly changing platform. Previously, you connected with people through Facebook. Now you connect with people ON Facebook. Being a “Facebook friend” takes on a whole new meaning. You can have a more meaningful relationship with someone you’ve never met in real life now.
As far as Facebook’s features and implementation, it’s a little rudimentary. You have some nice features for a web-based chat client, but it’s pretty bare bones. The biggest thing is once again, Facebook has rolled out a feature that’s enabled by default with no way to totally turn it off. This mistake has been made quite a few times. It’s MY account, MY profile. If I don’t want to use Chat, I shouldn’t be forced to see it.
Ultimately, I think it will take a huge chunk out of AIM, Yahoo!, MSN messengers. People are already going to Facebook to chat. If they create a simply desktop client, I would put my money on Facebook Chat being the dominant instant messaging service especially among kids in high school now and younger. With people spending hours and hours on Facebook already, they’ll gravitate to the services that they’re already using. A Jabber interface isn’t enough though, although that will be important for the Adium/Trillian/etc. users of the world. You need to create something that is as easy to install and use as AIM, and hopefully give people the ability to manipulate their Facebook profiles from the desktop as well (drag and drop photo uploader anyone?).
In summary: Great idea, decent features, let me turn it off if I want to, might take over the world.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I agree with Kelly, while it’s nice to have it there for instant connection, I feel like IM is dying with SMS and Twitter.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:02 pm
I see it filling a niche, but never taking much away from full IM clients like Live Messenger, Yahoo! or AIM.
I may use it to quickly make or confirm an evening’s plans or ask a friend a quick question. I may use it to contact some of my facebook “friends” that I don’t really know well enough to have traded IM screen names with yet. I won’t be using it for full, lengthy conversations though, and it’s far from a “killer app” that will draw me to facebook any more than I already go there.
And I think it would be a waste of resources for them to release a desktop chat client. I don’t know how well MySpace’s desktop chat app is doing but I know I tossed it in the bin a long time ago.
I think the best part of the whole thing for me, as has been pointed out, is the “live” notifications and being able to see who’s online at a glance with out having to load new pages. The chat itself I could actually do without.
Chris
April 24th, 2008 at 2:36 am
There is nothing remotely useful or appealing about the chat feature. As far as I’m concerned, people just hang around on “idle.” No different than being on AIM back when I was in middle school.
Maybe it’s different for others who actually have really close friends to talk to, but if that’s the case then it just seems easier to use GTalk, AIM, or MSN than to have the Facebook page open.
I think Facebook chat would have been a little more “revolutionary” if it had been implemented 6 months ago. With Twitter’s huge popularity in the last two months, a trivial chat tool like FB chat is not going to turn many heads.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I really dig it.
I don’t have to recreate the list of who my friends are in my buddy list because FB already knows who my friends are.
I don’t have to remember what my friend’s screen name’s are because FB just shows me their name.
You know it will have to have some type of desktop app support soon.