Today's second Ypulse Guest Post is from Meredith Sires. Meredith currently works as a junior associate at a New York-based book publishing consulting firm, but is interested in all media -- new and old school alike. She is fascinated by youth culture and enjoys nothing more than tracking how trends have evolved from her own fairly recent childhood up to the present day.

Do I Really Want To Show My Face Around Here?

As one of the (ahem ahem) chosen ones for this "pre-launch beta testing" deal, I experienced the new Facebook Chat feature for myself over the weekend. Truth be told, it scared me straight off the site. Out of nowhere this bar had appeared to inform me 11 of my "friends" were online and available. Of these, there were only three I'd actually want to chat with; all of whom were on gchat at the time. Basically, the only incentive to message them was novelty. And even that selling point wasn't that convincing. I can only imagine Gen Y-ers will face a similar dilemma only amplified. Not exactly innovative, persuading members to chat on Facebook will really be a matter of conversion. If I wouldn't choose Facebook over gchat, what will sway teens away from MySpace, Twitter and the like?

No doubt, this was a mostly logical move. Must keep up with Joneses. And longer visits = deeper engagement, right? But, this is assuming that teens and tweens will opt to chat via Facebook over the many alternatives available. On top of the crowded instant message platform, another potential protest is the lack of invites for chatting buddies. All confirmed Facebook friends appear automatically on one's friend list. Not only does this eliminate the anonymity of loitering on Facebook for hours on end, but also turns a once non-committal friend request into a possibly awkward online encounter. According to Inside Facebook, a friend list is currently in the works so perhaps this will be a moot point. Still, as of now, Facebook and I are not on speaking terms.

Posted by anastasia