New Facebook Chat: A Blessing or Annoyance?

There's AIM, MSN, iChat, Adium, Google Chat, and now...Facebook Chat? (Oh, I guess I should include MySpace chat, too.) The world's largest social networking site will stop at nothing! Conveniently, no buddy list is needed since users already have friends' lists from which to pick and choose who they'll converse with. Another difference: the mini-feeds will display in the chat windows so users can see who's been up to what and where and when!

A grad student seems to think, ""[Facebook Chat] looks like it's going to be an interesting and useful feature...My bet is that this will surpass [Google's] GChat as No. 2 behind AIM, because it's so universally used and logged into."

While that may be true, it can also pose as an annoyance. Yet another window to keep open! According to a computer programmer, "Not only do I need to keep each of the IM programs open now, but I also need to keep a copy of Gmail open in my browser, and now a copy of Facebook open in my browser...It's not like I need five different e-mail programs open to e-mail five different people."

Personally, I'm a fan of the clean, Google approach to chatting. I think I'll stick to it. My beloved Facebook has become such a smorgasbord of "impressive" eye candy over the past several months. Thus, yet another feature doesn't seem so appealing anymore.