Facebook officially unveiled their much hyped chat service today.
The social networking giant flicked the switch on the service which allows users of Facebook to message their friends quickly and efficiently from any page in Facebook. After a user agrees to go online they are greeted with their friends list in a pop up form on within an integrated version at the bottom of Facebook pages. Interestingly the connection doesn"t appear to be SSL so it might be possible for bad guys to sniff any conversations with your friends.
Facebook is in the middle of a re-design aimed to promote aggregation for users personally. In a message to Facebook users the company says "As you have seen in our screen shots, the "Wall" tab of your profile has a new emphasis on recent activity. We think this is the information that your friends care the most about, and the information that will recap what you have been up to lately. This change shouldn"t make you feel uncomfortable, and to ensure this we will be giving you control over what information is displayed about you. What"s really important is that you have a say in what information is being shared about you, and in turn, your friends have an easy way to see it."
It"s not clear how big corporations and businesses will deal with the new chat service as it"s so well integrated it may not be an easy task to block without blocking the whole of Facebook.