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Facebook’s chat service has become one of the most used features on the site but for many the service has become little more than an annoyance. The problem being that once you appear online, you would be regularly contacted by people that you don’t know or don’t care to chat with. While you may not want to chat at that moment, it’s nice to have the ability to see who’s currently online.
Thanks to a couple of new features within the chat service, it should no longer be annoying. There is now the ability to filter your friends based on your friend lists and you can even create friend lists from within the chat application. Having users displayed within friend lists is also an optional feature. The most important feature is the ability to control which friends see you online and which can’t.
This will most likely be a lifesaver for the most active Facebook users. Within the past half hour I’ve received multiple emails from users who have been seeing the feature rolled out. While I haven’t been able to use the new service it appears to be extremely useful. Facebook formally announced the new feature on their blog just over an hour ago.
Facebook is increasingly integrating the friend list features into all aspects of the site. Friend lists give users greater control of their privacy and are extremely useful for filtering through feed content. Every user that I’ve spoken to in the last half hour about this feature has been extremely happy have greater control over their chat settings.
While Facebook has stated that they’ll roll out a formal chat developer service in the future, no timetables have been set. One can assume that this friend list capability is what Facebook intends to use as a differentiator from existing chat services. Do you like the upgraded chat application? Do you actively manage your friend lists?
Yep, this is a good move. Another good move would be multi user chats. It’s annoying talking to three people individually who are all friends with each other…
Brilliant. Now if I have someone in multiple lists, he shows up multiple times in my FB-chat list. That’s idiotic.
Dan, you might be missing one other subtle point.
You can now create a group called YESCHAT that will be able to see you, and then lock out everyone else.
Forget about managing just at the group level, this gives users the ultimate in control, as granular or as global as they want.
While not a change for the worse, it’s hard to imagine that this is the feature most desired by users. Making privacy settings easier to use (and find) for the average user seems like a better place for Facebook to focus their attention.
I actually like it. I too have friends in multiple categories but I can’t think of a better solution. Dan, if you have one, I’m sure the FB team would consider it.
Kevin
I quite like it, the ability to have different online settings for different groups is useful. I think the multiple category problem could perhaps be solved by prioritising the filters - the first filter list that a particular friend appears in should be the one used for the chat window.
Takes up too much screen space for me, particularly with idle users.
I kinda like it. Finally the option to be online for some people but not for others.
I didnt goto school with everyone on my friends list, this shit is fucking annoying, QUIT CHANGING SHIT!
This is a lifesaver, I can go online again!
Seems to have a serious flaw. I’ve got all my Facebook contacts/ friends in a single list called “all-friends”, as well as in various smaller lists, selectively. But just picking “all-friends” in the chat list shows me ZERO friends online. I have to go and click all my lists (about 7-9 of them) to see everyone. Hardly useful if I currently want to default to “everyone”. Am I doing something wrong?
Okay, this is horrible. It says i have 87 friends online and it only shows me 10 wtf.
A shame that this change hasn’t yet been replicated in the iPhone application.
Here’s my question:
Let’s say you’ve got a friend that appears in multiple lists. When turning off one list, will this disable the person from talking to you, despite the fact they’re in another list?
From what I can tell, this *isn’t* the case. Meaning that you still cannot block individual people.
Unless… You can choose what lists appear in the chat window. If you disable ALL the lists, then create a “blocked users” list, then turn that list “off” — will the users within it be blocked from chatting with you, despire the fact that they’re in another list, albeit having the list disabled from appearing in the chat window?
(I hope that made sense.) I think the answer is still “no”, which means Chat still doesn’t have the capabilities we’re needing. How difficult is it to just block individual users, I mean really. If they just had one of those little “on/off” switches next to names of people (and not just names of lists), this would be a lot easier to manage.
Is anyone else having the occasional person from a list which is turned OFF (and I’ve verified not to be in any lists which is on) show up under ‘Other Friends.’
There’s no way to explain that other than an error in the Chat application.
can we turn it off… cause i have almost noone in lists, and i kinda want to talk to everyone… if you know what i mean..
Facebook Group chat.
If you want a Facebook group chat connected to your groups, page or friends you can easily set one up at PosterWall.com.
http://www.posterwall.com
Haha, what did I say last week?
that every week FB changes something else. Every week users get their “this week’s homework” - figure it out. I was so ubelievingly right. FB should create instructions manuel now, good god how they know to complicate users lives!!
Ok, this time it might be a positive change (finally 1 out of an endless bad useless upsetting annoying nuber of negative changes) though for the time being I can’t tell and won’t be able to tell (because I just stopped using FB for that reason).
Finally! The old chat function was absolutely horrible. I haven’t used it in years.
I was never to thrilled with the older version either. This new chat feature seems like it might have cleaned up some of the complaints people had in the past.
I personally think the new friend’s lists are nothing more than a nuisance!!!
I have in excess of 500 friends on facebook, all of whom I know personally and see regularly! I do not have time to seperate them into stupid lists.
It now takes me forever to find somebody on the chat function as university friends show up as school friends, and people I once worked with years ago still show up as workmates.
I do not want to have my chat organised by lists. But don’t seem to have any choice.
i cant seem to open chat, do i need to upgrade? if so what? help!
Why does it say in my chat pop up “Chat (6)” and only three people are listed?
how can we chat with friends on facebook?
having problems with facebook chat people can talk to me but i cant talk to them any ideas how to solve that
How do I block a person on fb chat only ?
Please, please can we get a group chat application