It’s Good to Be Green…With Envy
By Beth in Tech, Google, pop culture, Web 2.0, Gmail, Facebook on April 25 2008
I’d take Sergey over Marc any day of the week. That’s why when I first heard about Facebook’s new chatting utility from Gina Trapani over at Lifehacker, I didn’t really care. Google rolled out a similar item years ago and as far as I was concerned, Gmail chat was my staple. I was reluctant to get too excited over what seemed like yet another device that exposed my whereabouts onto a largely disinterested or conversely, overly gawker-ish audience. Truth be told I use Facebook relatively scarcely, mostly taking advantage of the feeds feature to see if friends have updated their profiles with new pictures.
On the flipside I use my Gmail chat quite often, preferring this over most of the other instant messaging and chat features offered by services such as AOL or MSN. The good news about Facebook’s new chat is that, like Gmail chat, it’s not a downloadable external client, and it pre-populates your buddies based on your contacts list. Facebook has capitalized on the trend of the passive user (and those of us who sometimes forget that we even have Facebook open on a tab in our internet browser) to incorporate an application that ensures we click on our accounts a little more often during our days and/or depending on how often we get pinged by a contact. It’s a savvy move for the company and an obvious next step in terms of features on the site, but the utility lacks a certain efficiency in multi-tasking various simultaneous chats. Clutter erupts at the bottom of the screen which makes attempting to integrate it as an activity during the work day all the more difficult. And I can’t speak for everyone else, but if I can’t use it as a diversion during my day, I’m certainly less inclined to use it as a past time on my time off.
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