FaceBook Chat Now Works With Stand Alone Client, Skype Needs To Catch Up

I have been playing with the beta release of the new Adium 1.3. I fall more in love with this instant message and chat client every day. It offers more connections to more types of accounts than you'd think to find in one place, and now it has gone one step further and added FaceBook and MySpace functionality.

To be fair, I actually think Adium added MySpace IM functionality an update or two ago, but with so much to offer I only just noticed it. FaceBook Chat functionality; however, is entirely new. Have I mentioned how much I love that I can now use FaceBook Chat without having to log in to FaceBook and be met with Lil Greenhouse, Pet Hottie, or Own Your Friends invites every five seconds? No? Well, let me tell you now that I adore it.

If you have no idea what Adium is, it is a multiple messaging and chat aggregator client much like Trillian, but made for Macs. It offers many, many more IM ad Chat clients than Trillian and a huge set of customizable features that are unmatched with other software. I've been known to recommend people with heavy IM usage use a Mac on the basis of this application alone on occasion.

The rate at which the creators of Adium add new chat and IM clients is astounding, truly. Add in the special Adium-only features like being able to set a message to be delivered when a contact logs back in, fully customizable accounts, support for multiple avatars, Xtras, and more and I use Adium more than just about any other program on my computer. Even the beta releases of new Adium versions are more reliable than other applications. Not only that, it integrates with iTunes to show my current song as my status, a simple feature which I use daily.

How could Adium be even better? I'd like to see them add video chat features. I hate to video chat, personally, but there are some people who don't like Adium because it doesn't allow them to use their iSight to communicate.

I'd also like to see them become compatible with Skype. I know that's a tall order, but even partial compatibility would be fantastic, perhaps for chat only, with a script that opens the Skype application if someone invites you to a video chat or calls your Skype number. Anything, really, to help me not have to have a separate window open for Skype would be ideal.

Adding Net4Mac functionality would also be nice. That's another one I truly can't stand having to have open to use. Who thought of making Net4Mac a desktop application, anyway? That was a terrible idea.

What about Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku as well while I'm making my giant Adium wish list? I use Twhirl for my Twitter client, and it is fine, but to use Twitter in Adium would be ever so much better. In fact, I can't think of any portable social instant messaging and chat application I wouldn't want to have available in the Adium interface.