Facebook Adds Chat; Count Me Out (For Now)
At the start of this month, the social-networking site Facebook began adding an instant-messaging application. It's not a separate program, or even a separate Web page that you need to launch to start zipping notes back and forth in real time. Instead, this little Web widget pops in and out of the bottom right corner of the Facebook page.
Like the instant-messaging feature in Google's Gmail, Facebook's chat widget wisely emphasizes simplicity and speed. You can't choose between dozens of different emoticons to telegraph your mood, but you can start and end a chat session with just a click or two. If you need to check something else on the site in mid-chat, clicking the dash in the top of the widget's frame collapses it into the status bar at the bottom of the Facebook page, where a little red badge counts how many new messages pile up.
And yet I'm not going to use this capability. Unlike most of Facebook's features, this one doesn't let you limit your exposure to certain groups of people. The site's documentation notes that once you set your status as online, anybody can ping you:
At this time you cannot prevent a friend from chatting with you on Facebook Chat. We are working on this feature.
I realized the problem on Friday afternoon, when a well-meaning publicist started chatting me up. Considering how many tech-PR types already use Facebook friend requests and messages to get my attention, things could get out of hand in a hurry.
That won't work for me. I don't mind good friends bugging me for a moment if they have a question that can't wait for e-mail, but I don't care to grant that level of access to everybody I know on Facebook. My workday is sufficiently interrupt-driven already.
Have you tried Facebook's chat? Is it worth your time, or more distraction than you need?
By Rob Pegoraro |
April 28, 2008; 11:30 AM ET
| Category:
The Web
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Posted by: cbr | April 28, 2008 2:35 PM
hi
Posted by: sudan | April 29, 2008 12:58 AM
I'm a high school teacher, and I keep in touch with some alums through FB. I don't use it much (1x/day, at most), so the chat isn't a big deal to me. But a funny thing happened the other night when I was on: a former student pinged me. The first thing she said was "FB Chat is not good for me!" When I asked why, she said that she was already distractable enough, and now THIS temptation! I LOL'd and, after a couple more lines, suggested she finish the paper she was grinding out.
Posted by: TR | April 29, 2008 11:09 AM
I joined facebook back at the beginning, when I was in my last couple years of college. By now, though, the site's become so extensive and unwieldy with the applications, news feeds, and everything else that it's really turned me off. And now real-time chatting. I'm a big tech fan (and use gchat constantly), but don't need another outlet - certainly not with Facebook. I might check in with Facebook once a week now, and have stripped my profile of all but a little info - and definitely won't be chatting.
Posted by: anon | April 29, 2008 1:43 PM
I think its a great feature to communicate quickly and effectively. I agree that at times one would not like to chat with someone not so important but you can just ignore!
Posted by: AP | April 30, 2008 5:24 AM
It's funny but I noticed that people kept using "gchat" to refer to the thing. I myself also do that.
But if you look closely at it in gmail you'll realize that the name of the product actually isn't "gchat".
Just a small observation.
Posted by: gchatter | May 1, 2008 4:08 PM
someone 'pinged' me in gmail earlier this week.
rob, have you run a review of this 'feature' in gmail?
if i read the previous comments correctly, because i've signed up for AOL's IM feature, i'm automatically subscribed to this chat feature in gmail?
thanks!
Posted by: tom rusch | May 3, 2008 5:07 PM
I would like to bring your time and attention to a new proposed standard for databases called http://isen.org or the Internet Search Environment Number. We plan to provide a search engine for database interfaces globally. Free information would be free and fee information would be revealed with information about the charge. ISEN could change the database access landscape. Please take a look and contact me at m@isen.org
Best Regards,
Matt
Posted by: Matthew S. Theobald | May 8, 2008 11:18 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
I'm with you. Too much for me. I use gchat almost exclusively now (and if I use anything else, its AIM within gchat). It fits all my needs nicely and isn't too intrusive.