Facebook Chat, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Even though a few people have had it for awhile, Facebook Chat launched for the rest of us today. Just what I need: another network to chat on.

One of the things I noticed right away is that there is no "away" status like most instant messaging clients. You're either online, offline or idle. It got me thinking again on a subject that comes up with friends and I quite a bit: "What is the purpose of an 'away' message anyway?" I don't think there is any standard netiquette.

Some people treat it like an answering machine. When they see you're "away" they'll IM you anyway knowing you'll get the message when you're back.

Some people treat their "away" status as a way to limit incoming chat traffic knowing that less people will bother you if you're listed as "away."

Generally, I use my "away" message as a way to let people know I don't want to be bothered by IM. For one example, if my away message says "Meeting," that means I'm in a meeting and don't want to accept chats. I stay online in case I need to ask a coworker or friend a quick question during that meeting. There's a number of situations where I want to remain connected to the network in "away" mode and not wanting to receive chats that I don't initiate.

I rarely IM people that are in "away" mode unless it's urgent or I think it's important.

Some people argue that if you don't want to receive chats you should be offline, not "away." It looks like that's the philosophy Facebook had when deciding how their instant messaging client worked.

I'm curious: how do you use the "away" message?

Facebook Security Settings, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Ed Kohler earlier this week wrote about friends on Facebook and decided to disconnect from anyone on the service that wasn't using a real name or used a real photo of themselves. I did the same thing, although I did keep a few people that didn't have a profile photo yet.

I think a part of one of Facebook's developer resources says it best:

The Facebook profile is the online representation of the user's real world identity.

I don't use Facebook as an alternate universe for real life, I use it as an extension to real relationships with real people. But some people site privacy concerns. I have a couple opinions.

My first opinion: if one wants to make fake profiles that hide your identity, there's a ton of other services that are designed for this kind of flexibility. Having fake profiles on Facebook dilutes the quality of the service. It's part of their terms of service and it's why they will remove people with falsified names and fake profiles.

My second opinion: Learn about Facebook's privacy settings. They're extensive. I think the defaults are generally suitable for most people but the option is there if you are not comfortable.

My third opinion: Journalists have three magic words: "off the record." It means that things that are shared verbally or through another medium do not get published. For the sake of argument, anyone that publishes photos and video (potentially of you) on Facebook could be considered a citizen journalist. If you don't want photos of you doing certain things showing up on Facebook, tell your friends it's "off the record." I get asked all the time to "not blog about this" or "don't post this photo publicly" and I always respect those wishes.

If I've removed you from Facebook, don't take it personally. It's just how I want to use the service: an online extension of real relationships with real people.

 I'm a big fan of Scrabble. Over the years I've played various licensed versions of Scrabble online including a good version in Flash that was at games.com years ago. It doesn't exist anymore and I haven't been able to find a good online Scrabble game since. (I am not a fan of Yahoo!'s knockoff, Literati.) As far as I'm aware, there isn't a good, free and legal online Scrabble game out there unless you count Scrabulous. I remember hearing about Scrabulous but I didn't pay much attention until it became a phenomenon on Facebook. There's hundreds of thousands of people playing it daily and I'm currently in eight games. You should challenge me too. Scrabulous isn't licensed by Hasbro, but then again, Scrabulous is based in India. Hopefully Hasbro's lawyers won't be able to take them out. Photo is a current screenshot of a tight game between Sharyn and I. I'm a bit nervous about how this situation will play out.