The various ways it’s possible to communicate with friends (in either the traditional “I’ve-known-you-since-childhood” sense or the current “who-the-heck-is-this-person” sense of the word) has just expanded by one more. Facebook now offers chat with any of your Facebook friends who happen to be visiting Facebook at the same time. Check out the new tool in the lower right corner of, apparently, every Facebook window (the chat tool is always in the lower right corner when you’re conducting important business on Facebook):
It helpfully shows you how many friends have a browser page open to the Facebook site, and (when you click the “Online Friends” link), how many are idle and how many are actively Facebooking something. It shows your current Facebook status message, too, when others look to see if you’re online.
The number of ways to stay in touch with people is exploding! I could Twitter you about the recent change to my Facebook status talking about the profile update I made in LinkedIn saying I posted a new entry to my blog, but I won’t. I’ll rely on good old RSS. The mind reels.