Facebook Chat: Latest Stats & What’s Coming Next
When Facebook launched Chat 10 months ago, it did so in a very gradual way. First, only employees could use it. Then, users in school networks could. Then, users in geographical networks. Finally, it was opened to all of Facebook’s 75 million users at the time.
Today, Facebook is used by over 175 million people per month, and Facebook’s Chat infrastructure has needed to scale with the site’s overall growth. In a recent tech talk, Facebook engineers discussed the Facebook Chat launch process, current stats, and what features are coming next down the pipeline. Here are the highlights:
Current Facebook Chat Statistics
- 300+ million chat messages are sent per day
- 4+ million active channels at peak
- There are “well over” 100 machines supporting Chat
- 67% of users have chatted at least once (so about 117 million people)
- The first message sent using Facebook Chat: “msn chat?”
What’s Coming Next
- Jabber support
- Long-term chat logging and search (chats are only logged briefly now)
- Group chat
- Friend list integration
Facebook also recently launched a Facebook Connect + Chat integration with Meebo, so there may be more Connect + Chat implementations coming soon as well.
You can also check out the full videos below:
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:26 am
I’d be interested to know what sort of monthly activity FB Chat receives.
In my own observation at coffee shops/cafes etc it would seem that the majority of users have FB Chat turned off but maybe its a Canadian thing…
February 28th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
[...] Inside Facebook on Facebook Chat: Latest Stats [...]
February 10th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
[...] good on a promise delivered just about one year ago, Facebook announced today that its popular chat feature can now be accessed through any Jabber [...]