Facebook, the popular social networking website, is now in its sixth year since start-up. In that time lots of changes have taken place to keep making it better. The evolution of Facebook continues as we speak.

According to the founder, Mark Zukerberg, the mission of Facebook is, “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” It clearly looks like that mission has been accomplished but they’re not stopping there. Like most things online, social networking sites included, the priority of generating money eventually emerges. Facebook is no different in that respect.

Facebook Social Networking & Multitasking
In the area of, “keeping people connected,” Facebook updated their social networking platform not too long ago to include a chat or instant messaging function. If people will chat on Facebook (which they certainly do) it will keep them on the site for longer periods of time, which is what the site’s promoters want. Most of us know how easy it is spend lots of time idly surfing some of these social networking sites and, with the addition of a chat program it’s now even easier.

But here’s the rub. If I want to chat with a friend or colleague online, I don’t want to be locked in to being logged into Facebook for the whole time. Sometimes I want to be doing other things, like writing this article for example.

Facebook Chat – Social Networking From Your Desktop
Fortunately, another evolutionary step Facebook has taken is making it possible for third parties to piggyback on their platform so that you have some more options than they make available. One of the first to jump on this opportunity is a Facebook IM called Chit Chat for Facebook. They took everything the Facebook chat function seemed to be lacking and added them into their program. Now you can have the best of both worlds.

This new Facebook instant messengers ties into your Facebook contact list (your friends) but allows you to chat with them without ever logging onto the Facebook site or even bringing up a browser for that matter. But even though you’re not logged in, it will alert you when any of your Facebook contacts are online and you can reach them with a simple mouse click.

Facebook Chat – Emoticons, Underline and Bold Text
But even more importantly, this means you can be doing something else on the computer and still be ‘connected’ to your friends. Chit Chat for Facebook also has lots of extras that are lacking in the Facebook chat. Emoticons, underlined and bold type, and the ability to automatically save any or all of your chat sessions are all there. It’s so much better than the original.

Evolution of Facebook
Facebook has made some great strides since its inception, when it was aimed at only college students attending a few select Universities in the US. It’s grown from a few thousand users to close to half a billion, and in a very short time. The evolution of Facebook is stunning. And, with the help of firms like Chit Chat to make it even better, the sky’s the limit.

Guest Post by Gary Roy