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News.blog: Facebook updates privacy, adds IM

He described how Facebook began as a service for American college students -- indeed, a university email address was required to register -- but four years later the user base, now numbering 67 million, has changed dramatically. Two-thirds of Facebook members are now outside the US, compared with just 10 per cent 18 months ago.

"We think there are basic principles at the core that hold true," Cohler said.

But that's not all. As was rumored, Facebook will be launching an instant-messaging service, called Facebook Chat, which should be out in two weeks. Product manager Peter Deng gave a sneak peek of the service.

"When you log in to the site there is a Chat (user interface) at the bottom of the browser... It's unobtrusive and there when you need it," Deng said. No download will be required for Chat, which integrates with a user's Facebook friends list, and it works with all browsers. Members can hold multiple conversations, log on and off easily, keep the conversation going as they navigate through different pages on Facebook, and pop the chat up into a new window.

"We want Facebook to be part of your experience all over the Web," Cohler said. "Our business is not to make Facebook an island."

It sounds like Facebook Chat is too light of an application to pose a big threat to existing instant-messaging clients -- at least for now. There's no limit to the number of chats a member can hold at a time, but they're all one-on-one (no group chats). There's also no "away message" function, just "idle" notifications if a member is logged in but has been away from the keyboard.

Additionally, Chat is restricted to Facebook alone. There's no API for it, so third-party services like Meebo can't access it. But the company is looking at Jabber support, which would mean that it could access external instant-messaging services much the way Google Talk does.

"We are looking at whether we will integrate it or not," Cohler said of Jabber. He added that other features in Chat are on the way, but not immediately.

Conversations in Facebook Chat are automatically archived for 90 days, after which the system clears them, but Facebook members will be able to clear their chat histories manually at any given time.

After the presentation, Cohler was asked about the company's relationship with the independent developers creating applications for it, perhaps because of concerns that Facebook would create an internal application that would rival third-party ones. "We develop our apps at parity with developers," he answered. "You can remove our apps and use other applications instead, and we don't make that difficult to do."

In addition, Cohler said, Facebook is hoping to strengthen its relationships with its developer community, perhaps holding another large-scale developer event like the one it held when it first launched the Facebook Platform last May.

News.com's Dan Farber co-wrote this report.