Could facebook chat undermine news feed

As normal i booted up the old PC this morning, launched firefox and checked my newsfeed of Facebook....and then there it was in a big yellow box on the bottom right hand side of my browser - a notification that facebook chat was now live.

I instantly thought 'Nightmare' and posted my views on twitter " facebook chat - just what we need another distraction. Extreme Social Media Distraction Syndrome is rife!" As a user i like facebook as it can be used to keep you up to date with events, friends, social occasions, news and have a bit of fun with pictures and games. The killer application is the new feed which delivers succinct snippets of information based on your friends profiles, this is updated by users to communicate to their connections. Now from research we have done here within our company in the youth and student market we have established that people enjoy the non real time and have tended to move away from email and chat when communicating with friends. I will cover the reasons for this in a later post but essentially this is related to real time distraction.

Facebook chat could actually undermine the news feed by allowing the user to communicate in real time. Now i agree that chat and the news feed have completely different purposes but you would be amazed at the number of people i speak with who don't even understand what communications tools they are using and the best practice for purpose on various methods. It will be interesting to see what the impact of the one2many news feed has when users adopt a real time one2one facebook chat option instead.

An example i have just experienced this morning - so here is the scenario.... Im looking to hook up with my friend Carl in the next couple of weeks so i would normally post a message on his wall and wait for his response, now the key here is that all our common friends will see we are meeting up and join us - but with facebook chat i might now use facebook messaging instead meaning the information does not get viewed by the many. I also agree that people already use MSN, SKYPE, google talk and other IM technology in conjunction with facebook but by having this feature plugged in to the site i believe it will have a fundamental change in user behaviour. It will be very interesting to watch over the coming weeks and i will keep you all posted.

Then there is the whole angle on employee distraction which is massive in my opinion - up until now i have been able to defend the use of facebook access to employees due to the nature of our business and our demographics but we have removed the use of MSN and other chat due to security and employee distraction but i would find it difficult to defend now with facebook chat integrated with the site.

Would be great to hear your views and comments on your experience with facebook chat over the coming weeks and months.

Cheers Craig.


Below is a the official FB press release for chat.

This week marks the launch of Facebook Chat—a new way for you to communicate with your friends in real-time. The Wall and Inbox have been the primary ways to communicate, but when more immediacy is necessary—for example when making plans for lunch in half an hour or arguing over a foul call in the NCAA tournament—they might not be enough. Chat aims to fill this gap.

We'll be rolling this out slowly going forward, but fairly soon you'll notice our new Chat bar at the bottom of your browser—no installation or assembly required. From this bar you can view your list of online friends and open conversations with any or all of them. There's no need to setup a "buddy list." Unlike the Wall or Inbox, the messages are delivered and displayed to your friend as soon as they're sent, so you should expect a response right away and without any page loading. Of course, Chat has to play nice with the rest of the Facebook experience. You can collapse conversations to get them out of the way, and go offline if you don't want to use Chat at all. Chat is there when you want it, and tucked away when you don't.