Have you ever grumbled that a particular application you use doesn’t work the way you want it to, or doesn’t have a specific feature you want?

Sure you have. I have too. Everyone has. But what makes coders and developers different is that they usually hunker down and implement the feature or fix the code themselves. Especially in the world of open source, whining for a new feature will just get you, at most, a derisive comment. You are expected to pull your own weight, get the ball rolling, and then people will join in to your effort.

That said, this post is going to be an unabashed whine for an essential tile that is missing in this blizzard of puzzle pieces called social media. And that piece I will call the universal receptor protocol.

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Today, Digsby announced an unexpected new feature: direct support for Facebook chat!

As far as I know, Digsby is the first multi-IM client to support Facebook chat, and it’s a feature that many Facebook users are looking forward to. They say in a blog entry that messaging, buddy icons, status and status messaging are currently supported. The more advanced features that Digsby is known for will be added soon.

The latest Digsby build also fixes some bugs associated with Yahoo! Mail beta and proxy support. Full details can be found at their blog.

You’re on AIM, MSN and Yahoo! Messenger. You have Google Talk through Gmail and you still have that old ICQ account lying around.

You think you have it covered with Trillian or Pidgin.

Perhaps you think you are a step ahead of your coworkers because you are using Meebo.

Think again.

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In the course of reviewing different Twitter add-ons to Firefox yesterday, I noticed there was an entire page of betas that required a login to install. One of the betas that I noticed was called TwitKit. Apparently, I’m too lazy to create a login, but I did find the link to the developer site in the details.

I couldn’t find any screenshots of the app anywhere. But I shrugged and went ahead and installed it. You can see a thumbnail of what it looks like over there. I have to say, I’m impressed, even with this beta.

First, it has a nice, clean interface reminiscent of TweetBar (which I reviewed here), in a pleasant brown color (or is that colour) scheme. There are 6 tabs, and it defaults to the 2nd, user.

Public shows you everyone’s tweets. User shows you the latest tweets from your friends. Friends gives you a list of the people are you following. Followers shows you who is following you. @s are messages directed toward you and me gives you a handy stat page similar to the “about” page on Twitter.

Also on the interface page, you have self-explanatory refresh and clear buttons. Below that is your list of tweets. Now this is what gets my excited — as opposed to TweetBar, TwitKit has a tiny reply and favorite icon below each user picture. Perfect! Also, not shown, there is a red dot on the right side of your own tweets, which can be used to ‘hide’ an update. This feature doesn’t seem to work consistently, or well. But this is a beta so I am not too worried.

Aside from the main interface, there is also an options page that allows you to add the from application to each tweet, a refresh timer setting, the ability to change how names are shown, and a pull-down selection of 4 different color themes.

After using this add-on for a couple of days, I have to say that I find it fully as enjoyable to use as TwitterFox, but in a full sidebar form factor. It is stable and responsive. There are a couple of drawbacks, but they aren’t major: First, you cannot install TwitKit on Firefox Beta 3, it only works with FF2. Also, TwitterFox supports multiple Twitter logins in the interface, and with TwitKit you would need to sign out, and then sign back in to a different log in, which would be a pain.

Otherwise, it is stable and easy to use. I can definitely recommend this product!

Update: If you already have Tweetbar installed and active, disable or uninstall it before installing TwitKit.  Apparently the two plugins don’t like each other much.  Thanks tw3nty3ight for the heads-up!

I recently wrote a review of Twitter, so I wanted to share a related video with you, from Gary Vaynerchuck, founder of Wine Library. In this video he is speaking about Twitter vs Facebook from his personal video blog. I really think he’s really on to something here.

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It has generated a lot of buzz in the past year, but for many, what Twitter does is still a mystery.

Why do we need to log in somewhere just to type in a sentence worth of text?
Isn’t that what Instant Messaging is for?
I heard it is just like Dodgeball.
I have a few friends who LOVE Twitter.. but they can’t really explain why!
None of my friends use it.. why should I sign up?

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