Facebook Chat vs AIM/MSN/Google talk, etc

[user1397]

Interested to see if you people use mostly facebook for chatting instead of aim/msn/google talk, jabber, irc, etc

I personally basically only use facebook chat now, mostly because theres usually a lot of people on it all the time and for me at least almost nobody logs in to their aim and msn accounts anymore.

I know facebook chat sucks, but I'm finding I don't have much of an alternative nowadays...

[collinp]

IRC > everything
Facebook Chat now has a option to use XMPP, so I'm starting to use it more than I did before.
Google Chat also uses XMPP.
Aside from those two, XMPP/Jabber has not been a very frequently used protocol for myself.
I often use Yahoo!, MSN, and AIM chat protocols to communicate with my real-life friends.

[Minipalmer]

Most of my friends quit the AIM scene loooong ago, so I haven't used it in ages. Occasionally I will catch a friend on Gmail. But mostly Facebook. Not because I like it more, but that's just where my friends are.

[phibxr]

I haven't actually logged in to the Facebook chat yet. I disabled it in the Facebook interface before anyone at all began using it, and I haven't tried the new ways of connecting to it with external clients.

Perhaps I should check if there's people logged onto the Facebook chat nowadays since it can be configured in Empathy. :)

At times I still use my MSN and GTalk-accounts, but my old ICQ-account has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

[LookTJ]

I have facebook, as well, Jabber.org, AIM, MSN(two accounts). The protocol I use most is probably Xfire, with jabber.org and Facebook in a tie. I don't use AIM or MSN much because I don't have any friends to add or chat with on them.

[AllRadioisDead]

Most of my friends find Facebook chat to be an annoyance, as do I. I use MSN when I want to talk to people.

[purgatori]

I don't have, nor do I want, Facebook. The face that other chat protocols predate Facebook is another reason that its usefulness has never impressed itself upon me. I mostly use Google Chat/XMPP; although I keep MSN around simply because I have a couple of contacts who I have so far been unsuccessful in convincing to move to a superior protocol/application.

[Psumi]

I only use other protocols.

[Hetor]

IRC > all

[kellemes]

Facebook isn't that big in Europe as far as I know.. is it?
Anyway, most people around me use Google, MSN or ICQ.
Never used Facebook myself..

[Khakilang]

I use Facebook since most of my friends are there only on occasion I use MSN.

[inobe]

face book and myspace aren't my thing for several reasons.

1) i'm not lonely

2) i don't need a date

3) i hate spam

4) i don't scam people and don't want to get scammed


i have nothing against these social networking sites, it's just not my kind of crowd


msn is fine, if friends don't want to use it, that's fine too.

[alket]

Facebook isn't that big in Europe as far as I know.. is it?
Anyway, most people around me use Google, MSN or ICQ.
Never used Facebook myself..

I could tell for Kosovo, they majority use facebook but not mostly for chat, but playing games and displaying photos, I never saw somebody to use AIM or Google Talk, everybody uses MSN Protocol.

[juancarlospaco]

I read that Jabber becomes a Propietary service using propietary servers,
and i dont use it anymore, because no difference with Gtalk (?), i use Gtalk.

Facebook is too slow for me.

[tica vun]

I only rarely use facebook chat. Mostly irc and identi.ca .

[Paqman]

I never really used it on the actual Facebook site, but since it's been integrated into the whole Empathy/Gwibber/everything else on Lucid i've actually had a couple of chats on it.

It's just another network. I'll use whatever connects me to people I want to talk to.

[purgatori]

face book and myspace aren't my thing for several reasons.

1) i'm not lonely

2) i don't need a date

3) i hate spam

4) i don't scam people and don't want to get scammed


i have nothing against these social networking sites, it's just not my kind of crowd


msn is fine, if friends don't want to use it, that's fine too.

I'm lonely, and I need a date, but I STILL hate Facebook :p

[Dragonbite]

Most of my friends which I used to use AIM and MSN with are either also on Google Talk or Facebook. So instead of opening up so many protocols, I've narrowed down to 2 most of the time and the others are there for when the mood strikes me.

Empathy handles both, too, including file transfer so that meets most of my needs.

Then there is Skype for when I want to video-chat.

[BrokenKingpin]

I use MSN, just because that is what most of my friends use.

[markp1989]

i use mostly msn and facebook chat both in pidgin

i only use facebook for the chat, im not in to the social networking thing, but its what my friends use to talk.

[drooze]

Facebook isn't that big in Europe as far as I know.. is it?
Anyway, most people around me use Google, MSN or ICQ.
Never used Facebook myself..

Facebook is quite big in Europe. It's huge in Belgium too. I guess the only reason Facebook can't get it's foot down in Holland, is because you all use hyves.

Before Facebook, when I met new people and wanted to chat with them, I asked their msn adress. msn is what everybody used.
I recently went to a new class in university, and was able to add pretty much the entire class on facebook through one person I new. No more need to go ask everybody individually for their email, you can just find people you know easily through common friends.
This for me is one of the strenghts of social networks.

On windows I use digsby to connect to msn, google talk and facebook. on ubuntu I use emesene for msn, and empathy for facebook and gtalk.
When on the move, I connect to all three though meebo.com

[Nevon]

I didn't think anyone really used the Facebook chat. I mainly use MSN, IRC and Jabber/Google Talk.

[descendent87]

I use Google Talk & MSN most the time but since you can use Facebook Chat properly in empathy I've started using it more

[Dragonbite]

One thing I always wonder is while I'm using a nice chat application in Faceboook, what does the person on the other side see?

Do they see that annoyingly small chat box open up on their webpage? How wide-spread is a chat application for Windows or Mac users?

[Maheriano]

I absolutely refuse to use Facebook chat. I have over 30 unread chat messages and I haven't even opened them to see what they say, I don't care. If people want to talk to me they can phone me. My computer's a tool for work so when I'm done work, I'm done on the computer.

[Nevon]

I absolutely refuse to use Facebook chat. I have over 30 unread chat messages and I haven't even opened them to see what they say, I don't care. If people want to talk to me they can phone me. My computer's a tool for work so when I'm done work, I'm done on the computer.

Then why do you have a Facebook profile in the first place?

[phibxr]

Facebook isn't that big in Europe as far as I know.. is it?
Anyway, most people around me use Google, MSN or ICQ.
Never used Facebook myself..

Here in Denmark Facebook is very big. If I'm not mistaken, it is in Sweden too, but I haven't lived there for the past two years. :)

[Nevon]

Here in Denmark Facebook is very big. If I'm not mistaken, it is in Sweden too, but I haven't lived there for the past two years. :)

It's big here in Sweden as well. Though I don't quite get why...

[mjr2k]

I'm lonely, and I need a date, but I STILL hate Facebook :p

I'm neither lonely nor do I need a date.
I loathe social networking websites. I do have a small business, but that's why I pay for a .com :-D

I'm not big on the IMs; chances are, if you're a friend of mine, you have my phone number (hasn't changed since I got it) and they predominately SMS with me.

A few posters have mentioned Skype - I use it mainly when my cellphone is dead OR when I'm trying to help someone do something that I can't help them with in person (distance-based).

[mjr2k]

Then why do you have a Facebook profile in the first place?

There's a VAST majority of companies/places/services that offer coupons, savings, and discounts to users that "like" them. For most of that stuff, personally, I use Twitter.

[mjr2k]

I absolutely refuse to use Facebook chat. I have over 30 unread chat messages and I haven't even opened them to see what they say, I don't care. If people want to talk to me they can phone me. My computer's a tool for work so when I'm done work, I'm done on the computer.

I'm right there with you. My cellphone and Skype are my means of verbal communication. I think eventually Skype will take over my cellphone usage; as it is, I leave my phone in my car when I'm going into public places.

[czr114]

XMPP+OTR/GPG

Mark Zuckerberg and his intrusive datamining can go to hell.