With more and more instant messenger for Facebook popping out recently, Facebook does not need to develop their own “official” IM. Last time, we covered ChatflowBasic and now, in this article, we are introducing Chit Chat for Facebook.

Chit Chat for Facebook is a free Facebook instant messaging tool for your desktop. The Facebook add on allows users to chat with Facebook friends without having a browser open. Some may not understand why this is necessary these days when desktop chat clients are considered so passé, but take it from someone whose boss likes to walk by their desk all the time: desktop chat clients are a boon to office workers everywhere! Also, Firefox users might welcome a chance to be able to chat with their buddies without opening up their enormous memory-leak-prone browsers. Suffice to say, Chit Chat for Facebook fills a legitimate user need.

The installation of this Facebook add on is a breeze, and not very intrusive. Chit Chat doesn’t try to get you to install a bunch of other programs along with it, which sets it apart from many other services (even some big-name ones). It does try to get you to sign up to a couple of other services which are selected by default, but it’s easy enough to uncheck them. It will also make a status update on your Facebook news feed to say you have logged into Chit Chat, but once again, it’s easy enough to turn this off by going to the options menu.

The FB chat tool itself works great. It has tabbed chat windows, it notifies you when your friends come online, and has lots of customizability in terms of its look – font size and color are easy to change, for instance. You can make status updates right from the chat interface, but you can’t see your friends’ status updates since Facebook blocks them from doing so. (Why, Facebook, WHY?) A useful feature is that Chit Chat automatically saves all chats, giving you a handy reference if you forgot, say, when you agreed to meet your Facebook friend at the coffee shop. Unlike Facebook chat, Chit Chat allows you to sort conversations and friends by most recent login, which is really nice. I do wish it could recognize friends with whom you have the most chat activity – maybe the developers can consider it for an upcoming feature?

The best part by far is the keyboard shortcuts. There’s one for seemingly everything: writing on your friends’ Wall, sending private messages, even opening the feedback page. Keyboard shortcuts are in general a fantastic idea and this is the best kind of implementation, when you hardly need to use the mouse once you have all the shortcuts memorized.

Some complaints: Chit Chat for Facebook is a Facebook-only IM client. Unlike the paid client Trillian, Chit Chat does not allow you to sign into multiple IM clients at the same time. Another drawback is that you can’t even chat with Facebook groups, Chit Chat only allows interaction with one person at a time. I don’t know if this is a limitation imposed by Facebook or Chit Chat’s own decision but I do wish somebody would fix it! However, if multitasking apps annoy you, and all you ever chat with are your Facebook friends, then this might be perfect for you. There are some other minor annoyances, like a sub-par interface that just doesn’t look as slick as some of the other IM clients out there. Then again, this is just cosmetic and overall Chit Chat does what it’s supposed to do, and does it well.

At the end of the day, the FB Messenger “Chit Chat” does face some stiff competition from other IM clients but as a niche product it really excels. It’s simple and uncluttered, does not try to do too much and works great. Some other chat clients (I’m looking at you, Windows Messenger!) can be impossibly buggy – not so with Chit Chat. It’s customizable to a great degree, and best of all its keyboard shortcuts are fantastic. With just a little bit of cleaning up of its interface and maybe a couple of concessions from Facebook to allow showing the news feed in the chat client itself, it would be perfect… But as it is, I can give it a solid recommendation.

4 stars out of five

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If you are looking for a web based IM program that support multiple IM services like Yahoo, MSN, Gmail and ICQ, you may want to try out FlickIM. Besides connecting you to most IM services, you can integrate your favorite web applications or widgets into FlickIM. It does have a better potential than Meebo and with strong 30,000+ and growing users, I am sure it will be the next big thing.

Like Facebook, users can add or remove widgets or web application as they pleased and inform their friends on the applications they have installed. Currently there are six widgets and two integrated services which allow users to enbed video and photo in chat messages. Soon, developers will be able to add their own application.

Try it out now!