[img src="" caption="" credit="" alt=""]I'm waiting for Facebook chat to become enabled in my profile, which gives me some time to think about what exactly I'm waiting for here. And, honestly, instead of being excited about a new feature, I feel kinda dumb.
The thing is, Facebook chat is not new in any sense of the word; it's just trying to convert you and pull you away from other similar services - Twitter, instant messaging - by leveraging the fact that Facebook has a lot of users. It's happening all the time: services often offer the same set of features in a slightly different package, but the real progress is nowhere to be seen.
Chat is actually a really good example. In the last couple of years, I remember reviewing chat widgets, web-based instant messengers, Twitter and its many clones, and now I'm waiting for Facebook to descend from the heaven and bring us...yet another web-based instant messaging/chat service.
I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man, but none of these really bring anything new to the table. Those of us who were online in the early 90ies have fond memories of a chat application (protocol, to be correct) which is still, by far the best and most fully featured way to chat online. I'm talking, of course, about IRC - Internet Relay Chat.
IRC is, for some reason, almost abandoned nowadays. It's a place to get obscure warez; a mess of channels with weird names, filled with bots, fserves, and the occasional quiz bot for killing time while you wait for something to finish downloading. I visit it because it still feels like home, but in most cases, there's no one to chat with there anymore. We've replaced IRC with other stuff, mentioned above, and moved on, but have we made any real progress in the process? I, for one, think we've actually regressed.