Facebook introduced a new Chat feature over the weekend with little fanfare to some of its users. The stealth launch and limited rollout of Facebook Chat (which this Facebook user was not able to test out) was likely to avoid overwhelming the new service and possibly crashing it with hoards of curious Facebook users.
Facebook Chat, as the name suggests, is an instant messaging service tied to your facebook user name. Based on Facebook's blog announcing the feature and reports from those lucky enough to try out the feature, such as Justin Smith of Inside Facebook, when Facebook chat turned on for your account a chat bar appears at the bottom of your browser window on any Facebook page you're viewing. The Chat bar tells you how many people from your Facebook friends list are online at the time. Want to chat with a friend online then just click on a friends user name and up pops a window from the bar you can chat to your friends in.
Facebook states that chat conversations will not be archived at all, and that there will also be a "clear chat" function to erase chats currently in progress. Also, Facebook makes no mention as to whether the service is compatible with any third-party chat networks such as AOL's AIM, Yahoo, or Microsoft. My guess is it doesn't.
UI Update
With the launch of the chat feature Facebook is moving some other features to the chat bar. Notifications will now appear on the chat bar as opposed to the top right corner of the page. This way no matter what Facebook page you are on, you will always have access to your notifications without needing to return to the home page. There is also the option to show your mini-feed stories in the chat bar so that you can always have access to those as well.
Facebook chat sounds like a smooth experience, though I have yet to personally try it out. It's more discrete than posting on someone's wall, and I can see the actual name of who I'm talking to instead of a nonsensical screen name. The only drawback I can see is that it seems the chat bar only appears while on Facebook pages, so I would need to constantly check back at a tab with Facebook open if I wanted to search other sites while chatting. If you were one of the lucky few to get the chat feature early, feel free to post your comments about the experience.
Scrabble Update
In other Facebook news, remember when Hasbro forced Facebook to remove the Scrabulous application because of copyright issues with Hasbro's Scrabble game?
Well, it seems Hasbro has found a better use of its time and created its own Scrabble application, according to reports.
The Scrabble Facebook application is being developed by Gamehouse, a division of RealNetworks. Right now the Scrabble application is currently "in beta" meaning it is still undergoing testing to make sure it works properly.
Early reviews of the official Scrabble online game aren't good. Beta testers have complained that the Scrabble application takes too long to load, is unresponsive during games, and does not have the ability to challenge words.
Why can't Hasbro make everyone happy and just buyout the folks who developed Scrabulous?
