Introducing social:im — Another social network IM client

When it comes to social networking using Instant Messengers (IMs), there are several popular options available in the market these days, like the Yahoo! IM, MSN Messenger, AOL IM, Google Talk, and Meebo, to name a few. Here’s introducing another social network IM client called the FB IM or social.im. Using this IM, you can chat with all your Facebook friends from one IM client. Your friends on Facebook automatically become friends on social.im.

I cannot divulge any details about the company, other than Hank Barry is an investor (he sent out a Facebook message announcing the IM.) More information can be obtained at the social.im: blog.

Currently, the Alpha version of social.im is available for download. Moreover, social.im is available for Windows only, but going by the information available on their website, a Mac version would be released soon.

The logic behind social.im is that while your contacts may use end number of chat clients, there is a strong probability they use Facebook. The differentiating factor about this application is that you don’t run social.im in a web browser window, but as a standalone program that logs into your Facebook account without a web browser.

Your friends must also install the client before you can chat with them. If they don’t have the application on their machine, you can easily notify them about the service using this IM.

social.im does not include any file transfer or image sharing features. Not even the voice chat! The IM client, however, includes a status bar, which informs you about any new Facebook messages, pokes, friend requests, or wall posts since your last login. As the product readies for a beta release, we are hoping to see more value-added features like those offered by popular IMs such as Yahoo!

It’s still an early release, so a lot of questions are likely to go unaddressed. If you are keen on knowing more about this IM, you can join this Facebook group or refer to this Facebook page.