What XMPP chat means for Facebook users

So, XMPP. Not exactly a household acronym, is it? It stands for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, more commonly known by its former name, Jabber.

XMPP is an open IM protocol. Anyone who feels like it can roll out their own XMPP server, from enterprise servers for in-house use such as Spark all the way to massive public servers like Google Talk.

And now Facebook have joined the XMPP party by enabling XMPP on their own chat service. If you go into Facebook and set your chat anything other than Offline, you can then close the tab and log on from any XMPP client (such as Miranda, AIM and many others). You will see all of your Facebook contacts, or only those groups you opted to disply in Chat.

To log on to Facebook Chat via XMPP you will need your username, which is your "vanity URL". If you don't have one, use whatever username is listed under Account > Account Settings in Facebook.

This can be a fairly big deal for Facebook in the long run. With Google Buzz now giving them some stiff competition in the status update/microblogging arena, this seems like their (awfully late) answer to Google Talk. For one thing, it makes it easier to communicate with your Facebook buddies while working without being immersed in the massive time-waste that is Facebook's very essence.

Tags: chat, facebook, google-talk, im, jabber, social, xmpp