Facebook Launches Chat

Facebook announced that they will be launching Facebook Chat soon.

They will roll out Chat features gradually. It won't require any installation, the new chat bar will appear at the bottom of the browser window, like GTalk sidebar in GMail. You will also be able to receive notifications from your mini-feed and applications if you choose to, in the chat bar. It will provide the common features like maintaining chat history, invisible mode, etc.

But now the question is, does any one really need one more IM? I think it's definitely useful when you don't have all the Facebook friends on your existing IM clients. One more important feature would be allowing chat with people outside of Facebook, that might allow people to grow their social network. Another thing to observe is the reverse trend of social networking website providing instant messaging application.

Xfire

Xfire is an instant message client with one unique addition over other clients: it can be used inside of a pc based video game. The client is switched on before a game is played and can detect when a game is being launched. This allows it to display what game you are playing to all of your friends, as well as track your game stats for later viewing online. Also, making an Xfire account gives you access to the forums and profile system. It's an interesting application of social web technology as there is no need to visit the website once you have downloaded the client, yet you are still part of the network. Lastly, there is no reason to keep playing a game just to stay in touch with the people who you used to play it with, Xfire works perfectly well outside of a pc game and has even been introduced to GAIM (now Pidgin) through an extension although this extension does not seem to be updated on a regular basis.