Chat

There are a number of chat applications on Facebook that I have already featured on this blog. One of the chat applications that I have seemed to overlook is SaKi IM. SaKi was the first chat application on Facebook. The application is well designed and works perfectly from within your profile. The downside of the application is that you have to invite all of your friends first. Once you add the application, it tells you which of your friends have already added the application and what their username is. I think it would be highly beneficial to automatically add my friends to be SaKi chat buddies as soon as I sign up. It kind of defeats the purpose if they need to confirm me as a friend twice (once within Facebook and once through SaKi). SaKi has just hit their tipping point and are now experiencing exponential growth on Facebook. While they currently have just over 22,000 users, their user base is growing rapidly. This may end up being one of the more popular chat applications on Facebook. There is definitely some competition among the chat applications including Meebo, Google Talk, and Chizzat. It will be interesting to see which of these apps receives widespread adoption and whether Facebook will launch their own chat application. If you want to try out a new way to chat on Facebook, go grab the SaKi instant message application.

There is a new desktop application in the works that is going to integrate an instant messenger application with the Facebook platform. This is pretty slick. The application will display all of your friends and allow video chat, video messaging, and more. Airwaves is a combination of Adobe’s AIR (previously Apollo) and the Yahoo! Messenger Vista client. While there has been much discussion throughout the blogosphere already, I couldn’t help but comment on it. This is what I always expected of an instant messaging client. I have always theorized about an instant messaging application that gives you access to all of your friend’s profiles, pictures, videos, and friends directly from the application itself. Having access to all of your contacts and their self-expressive media from one simple application would be a revolution in communications. The upcoming Trillian Astra is a perfect example of such an application. It integrates your MySpace (not Facebook …. boo!) IM account, personal profiles, widget plugins, web chat, and more! While the AirWaves applications looks like a far cry from the Trillian Astra (especially since one developer is working on it), it is a step in the right direction. I will be interested to see how this one turns out.

Want to send prank text messages to your friends? If you live in Canada (soon being offered for the U.S.) you can now send funny texts to your friends. The cool part of the application is that your friends can reply to your text without knowing your number. So have fun playing and flirting with your friends or secret crush. Will this be banned? I’m not sure, but if they add the application to the U.S. they are going to start having a massive rush of users. I can see hundreds of millions of text messages as a direct result of this application. If you want to send prank messages to your friends (in Canada for now) then go grab the Wink and Jab application.

No, bOK is not an alternative to poke. bOK is a new way of communicating with your friends on Facebook. After you have signed up for a bOK account and have added the bOK Application to your profile, you can call your friends by clicking the “bOK” link in their profile. You will then receive an incoming call on your cellphone, with your friend on the other line. This sounds like a new VOIP offering for Facebook. I am really impressed with how quickly this was launched. If you want to call your friends that are in Canada and the United States, go check out bOK.

Jake Jarvis of Ridge High School has brought Meebo to Facebook. Thanks to this application you can allow your profile visitors to chat directly with you. If you are not logged into your Meebo account, the application will leave a message. While there are already live chat alternatives, including one that I profiled earlier, this one is the only instant messaging application that I know of. So if you want to add chat capabilities to your profile, go check out the Meebo application.

This is potentially huge. Dan Uyemura and Gary Chi have introduced a new application called “Chizzat”. Chizzat provides users with Facebook wide chat rooms. I hadn’t thought about it but as more features get added to Facebook it is becoming increasingly similar to the AOL application. The only feature that is lacking is the ability to browse the web from the site but perhaps someone will build a Facebook browser. Regardless, adding chat as a feature is a step forward. If you want to chat with other Facebook users go chit chat on Chizzat.

Thanks to Rong Ou of Silicon Valley you can now use your Gchat from the comfort of your Facebook profile. Want to narrow down the amount of applications running on your desktop? Now you can remove one by adding the new Google Chat Application. While there are many other chat applications in the works, this one seems to work smoothly when it’s not being overloaded by traffic. Previous chat applications I have avoided writing about due to errors that were taking place. This one seems to work! The only addition that is left is adding Gmail to your Facebook page. Once that takes place, you will be able to spend all day on Facebook! So go grab the Google Chat application now! There’s no reason not to try it out (unless of course you don’t use Google).