Adding to the “Chit Chat” brand, Athena IT Limited, have released “Chit Chat” for yet another platform – your web-browser. Current availability is for Windows, iPhone and the Blackberry smart phone.
In its first release of the calendar year, Athena IT Limited have released a free Facebook online chat app – Chit Chat for Facebook (web). You would be forgiven for judging Chit Chat (web) merely by its title, as a useless application as you can already access Facebook chat with your browser. On deeper inspection, you’ll notice that Chit Chat (web) is a mature Facebook web messaging solution that beats hands down the current Facebook chat implementation on Facebook.com.
Whilst Chit Chat (web) does miss a number of core functions, for example, blocking Facebook groups and video chat. The application does add some useful benefits, such as the ability to search through your contacts list and the ability to much more easily handle many conversations at once – what really stands out is the interface.
Moving away from the bland blue of the Facebook app for PC incarnation of Chit Chat and towards the vibrant, professional interface as seen in the Blackberry version, Chit Chat for Facebook (web) is a delight visually yet maintains practicality.
We particularly liked the ability to search for a particular friend to see if they’re online or offline, or for those with a large contact list the ability to engage in a conversation with someone quickly. Of note, is that you can search for their surname, forename or a part of their name – in short, Facebook friend searching is robust and elegant.
Also of interest is the ability to hide the contact list and to have a full screen of conversations, which are of course tabbed as has become convention over the past few years. Users will notice that messages sent and received are sent in message bubbles, similar to that seen in the Facebook (Blackberry) version of Chit Chat. Users unfamiliar with the Chit Chat brand would consider them similar to the message bubbles seen on the Apple iPhone during SMS correspondence.
The biggest down side to me of Chit Chat (web) is that it doesn’t support group chat – however, as that’s not within the current Facebook Chat API that’s not surprising.
To conclude, Chit Chat for Facebook (web) is a good online Facebook instant messaging solution for your browser. Chit Chat does what it promises to do, upgrade your Facebook chat messaging experience.
Promotion : Android Mag
No. 11 2012 Issue