I suppose this is not a surprise given how many users Facebook has, but will it be successful? Will the millions of IM users currently on Yahoo!, AIM, MSN and even ICQ and GTalk also use the Facebook platform for Instant Messaging? I say Facebook needs to ensure that they’re Jabber compatible so that we can plug yet another IM service into one of the all-in-one IM clients (like Trillian, Pidgin, etc.). Once upon a time, I only had Yahoo Messenger, then once my IM friend space grew to more than just YIM, I simply had to throw away the model of having a separate application for each service. Enter Trillian (BTW, I can’t wait for the new version).
Now a lot of people already use Facebook’s messaging as if it were e-mail, and if they’re addicts, you could even say it’s a bit like IM. The only benefit to me is that perhaps this will encourage my Facebook buddies who are not IM-aficionados to get on the IM train.