Facebook Chat: kiss your productivity goodbye

Facebook has just turned on Chat in a “few networks” this morning and I think it’s a great implementation. While Facebook hasn’t announced an official rollout schedule, Chat will be gradually rolling out over the coming days.

It looks like Facebook is taking a slow approach to make sure that it can handle the increased load and scaling as users start playing with Chat, which is apparently just on a few networks so far.

In mid-March, Facebook gave a preview of the service and said it would be out in about two weeks. "When you log in to the site there is a Chat (user interface) at the bottom of the browser," product manager Peter Deng said at the time. "It's unobtrusive and there when you need it." No download will be required for Chat, which integrates with a user's Facebook friends list, and it works with all browsers, according to Deng.