14 DAY TRIAL // The fastest rising social network in the world, Facebook, has just confirmed its newest option to be added to the slew of services it offers. A web chat product dubbed unoriginally "Facebook Chat" will be released in the weeks to come, and will be added to the bottom of all the Facebook pages. Much like your average Instant Messenger, it will show which of the user's friends that is online (take that, you, who accept friends on a whim, see how you like scrolling down through hundreds of online contacts!), whom he or she is chatting with and various other commands that have nothing special about them, but are required to be by default.
In its incipient versions, Facebook Chat will only allow one on one discussions only, but chat rooms have been announced to come at an undisclosed time in the future. However, should a user choose to chat with all his contacts, he will be able to, as no limit on chat session numbers has been introduced. As per usual, conversations will be archived and messages sent to people not using chat or are offline will instead be delivered to their inboxes.
Facebook users will not be able to use this chat to talk to people outside of the social network just yet (or ever, if we're to be guided by their policies, but keep your fingers crossed) because the feature isn't Jabber compliant. Furthermore, there's no integration of Gtalk or AIM or any other protocol at the moment, but Product Manager Peter Deng said that the product will be enhanced over time. It's meant to be totally unintrusive, but it will follow the scroll, as shown in the video embedded below.
Two things are for certain that the Facebook Chat will accomplish: it will maximize the time spent on the site, but it will most likely decrease the number of pages viewed. Not sure how that will work for their advertising scheme, but adding chat was a must.