Windows Messenger is rolling out theFacebook-enabled chat feature to more countries world wide, making the function available to more than 75 million additional users around the globe.
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Parents can pay $100 a year to monitor their kids’ activity online. Or get that free with purchasing social game credits on Facebook, and transferring them to another website altogether. The latest of these is Woozworld.
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These days it seems as if the only applications getting attention on Facebook are games, but Mingleverse is making some waves with their recently released 3D voice chat application.  The program allows users to enter a virtual room and have virtualized (hence 3D) audio chats with the other people in the rooms, and the application makes it easy to share media like Youtube videos and photos.

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Adium has announced support for Facebook chat in their upcoming release. This is the third instant message application to add support following behind Digsby and Gabtastik. While there is no word on when the upcoming release will officially launch, I would imagine that it will take place in the coming week. Facebook chat is rapidly becoming a ubiquitous platform of communication.

I have been using Facebook chat an increasing amount since I have so many contacts on the site. While Facebook chat doesn’t let you grant selective access to users yet, I’d guess that they will soon add more features. I don’t currently use my Mac as frequently as my PC so I haven’t had the opportunity to check out Gabtastik. It has received positive reviews from a number of people that I’ve spoken to about it.

Adium is one of the most popular chat applications for Mac users and I’d guess that this upcoming release will be extremely popular. Adium already supports 14 other chat platforms including ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk and a number of others. This will add one more to the lineup. Read more about it over on the Adium blog.

Imagine spending a couple months building a Facebook application only to wake up one day and see it launched as part of Facebook’s core feature set. That’s what happened to Amin Ariana who built the Friendmates application. Amin launched a friend suggestion and soon enough it was launched on Facebook. While I think this service is an obvious feature that would eventually launch, Amin did not sound to happy in his email to News.com.

This wasn’t the only time that Facebook has stepped on developers’ toes. With the upcoming launch of the Facebook chat application, many developers will find it a challenge for their application to succeed. There are currently over 1,200 chat application listed in the Facebook application directory. While most of the chat applications have failed at attracting a sizable user base, a few creative ones have grown significantly.

Babuki Desktop Instant Messenger is one application that has been able to attract a substantial user base within a matter of days. They are avoiding competition with Facebook by launching a desktop chat application that integrates with Facebook. This contrasts with Facebook’s upcoming chat application which resides completely within Facebook.

For now Facebook has avoided angering too many application developers but as time passes and Facebook rolls out new features they are continuously at risk of backlash. Have you seen other applications suffer from new Facebook features?

Mike Arrington has posted about another Facebook IM service that is currently offered for the P.C. I went ahead and installed it and it immediately crashed. The idea of a Facebook IM service is a great one though and it’s nothing new. FriendVox has been offering Facebook IM services for a while now. Both applications have been facing challenges with debugging though.

The second time around the application worked without crashing. There was only one contact on the service though. I tried chatting with Paul Reilly and it appeared to work pretty well. IM alerts pop-up in the corner of your screen everytime you receive a message which is pretty nice. Additionally, it’s pretty nice to have the images automatically loaded directly into your buddy list.

The instant message client is extremely basic. There is a buddy list and IM windows. That’s it. There are also links to your wall posts, friend statuses and more but they are only links and don’t load within the application. It would be nice if you could mouse over a user and view their status. Additionally, I’d like to be able to view appended user profiles within the application. This is a great start as a Facebook instant messenger client. It will be interesting to see how these evolve over the coming months.

One of my biggest Facebook pet peeves is when someone responds to a wall post on their own wall. If you do this, and I know a lot of people do, the person who posted on your wall won’t see your response.

I feel it is my duty to share with you the correct way to respond to a friendly wall post from a friend:

1. Click “Wall-to-Wall” which is found underneith their message.
2. Respond to the wall post and click “post”.

Then they’ll get a notice of your response and you can have a conversation. You can also easily keep track of the messages you have sent back and forth with that friend by clicking wall-to-wall.

So that’s what annoys this gossip blogger.

Oh and stop poking me. I don’t like it!

What’s your Facebook Pet Peeve?

Leora Zellman writes a million blogs and is also a channel editor at b5media

Yesterday, news surfaced that Myspace and Skype are partnering on a voice function for the MySpace IM client. Basing a messaging client on a social network is a powerful concept. Just last week, FriendVox launched a messaging client for Facebook. For me, the real question is when is Facebook going to launch their own IM client as well as upgrade their messaging system?

There are a number of other Facebook IM clients that have launched, a number of which I have previously covered. If Facebook plans on truly becoming a $15 billion company (something that many are highly skeptical of), they are going to need to improve their messaging system. I have spoken with a number of individuals who are having serious problems managing their inbox. This is particularly the case for application developers that have popular applications or those that are social connectors.

The bottom line is that Facebook is going to be forced to release a more effective messaging system soon. The best time for Facebook to release a new messaging client would be prior to the rumored November 5th launch of the Google platform (or at least prior to phase 2 of the Google platform during which Gmail will be integrated). Are you having similar issues with Facebook’s messaging system?

According to blognation, a brand new IM client for Facebook is going to be launching for Facebook in the coming weeks. I covered a chat application back in June which plans on leveraging the Facebook social graph. The application which at the time was called “Airwaves” has changed names to “Fuze.” This new application has been hyped up as though it is the official Facebook chat application that also has an open API.

While it may be the first stand alone chat application to launch, it is not going to be the last, nor does it have a robust set of features. This is an extremely simple chat application but it is definitely a great first attempt. Unfortunately there is no way to test out the application currently so you’ll have to wait until it launches.

Want your profile visitors to be able to instant message you while visiting? Thanks to the new AIM Wimzi widget that was produced by AOL, you can. This application is similar to the Meebo Me widget that was available for users to add to their website. It looks like AIM beat Meebo to the punch but I would be willing to bet that Meebo is furiously developing their Facebook application. Also, it’s interesting to see the growth in AOL’s presence on Facebook. Just yesterday, my friend Frank Gruber created the MyAOL Facebook group. This new application by AIM is extremely useful. Rather then trying to reinvent the wheel by developing a Facebook only chat application, AIM simply brought their product to Facebook. AIM is easily the most popular instant messaging platform within the United States. If you want to let your profile visitors chat with you while they are peeping into your life via your Facebook profile, go grab the AIM WIMZI application.