Facebook rolled out their latest feature, Facebook Chat, on Wednesday to members of the Texas network. Announced in March as an instant messaging service, Chat slowly rolled out to university networks across the country, starting with Stanford and Harvard.
Facebook Chat features are similar to that of its competitors. Users can set their status to ‘online’ or ‘offline’ as a way to make them accessible for instant communication. Chat conversations can pop out into a new window, and you can see who is online by clicking on the “Online Friends” button.
“I love it. It’s going to be interesting to see if this will replace AIM or GoogleChat or if this will make us more dependent on Facebook,” said Katy Phillips, a communication studies and government senior. “In my classes, everyone that has a laptop seem to not only be on Facebook, but now they are also chatting.”
Not all users are impressed with Facebook’s new feature, though.
“Facebook is getting a little out of control,” said advertising senior Rishi Magia. “It’s not that I don’t think Facebook chat is cool, but I just think the oversaturation of applications that they’ve been having recently is kind of taking the fun out of it. I guess the flipside is that they’re always adding stuff so it’s more engaging and entertaining.”
There are several features lacking in the new service. Users cannot initiate group conversations and chat histories cannot be saved. You cannot selectively hide your online status to certain friends, which contradicts Facebook’s current trend to increase privacy for its users.
One has to ask whether the Chat feature is providing anything people can’t find somewhere else – already.
“I think Facebook chat is nifty and well executed, but I honestly don’t need another way to chat with people,” said electrical engineering senior David Giesberg. “Sure thing, I’d also add to that by saying that Facebook, more or less, solved a problem that didn’t exist.”
A screencast of Facebook Chat shot by TechCrunch
