IM vs. Facebook
01/05/2009
Instant Messaging has been around for a long time, with AOL and Micorsoft topping the list with their AIM and MSN clients. Other major competitors include Yahoo! and GTalk (Google's IM client). All have their good and bad points and commonly users will have an account with more than one of these services to connect with their friends and collegues.
But with the explosion that Facebook has been, has there been a dramatic impact on these services? It seems that a lot of communication that would have usually gone on using these services has now moved to "wall posts" or even Facebook's built-in chat service. Certainly, the Facebook chat, whilst not as sophisticated as any of the above services, has taken over and with IM clients such as Digsby and Adium (for Mac) providing access to all accounts at once, including Facebook and even Twitter, it seems Facebook will be the driving force in Instant Messaging for the near future.
There is also a noticeable increase in the number of Facebook users accessing their status updates and wall posts from mobile platforms. Could this be the step step in our "connected lives"? We'll just have to wait and see...
