I have enjoyed using Facebook over time and have always wished for a better and more interactive way, primarily outside the browser itself. To be honest using the social network within the browser killed the efficiency ad slowed the entire process of browsing down, especially if you have multiple tabs open and were using Facebook chat. And while TweetDeck did bring the status updates from your Facebook profile to its app, it wasn’t really worth it. In comes Microsoft with its Beta client of Silverlight for Facebook and my first impression is WOW.
The idea is simply superb and the need of the hour, I mean having a tool to use from your desktop to engage with content on Facebook using a very neat app just wins my votes for Microsoft. You simply need to download Silverlight 4 on your machine to begin with and once that is done the app is installed. From there on the process is like the countless we have gone through to install the countless software and apps we use on a regular basis. Which in short means I will not waste time explaining those.
The Features:
Almost everything that you have on Facebook within a browser. You have a neat and ad free left column for the links to News Feed, Pages, Links, Status Updates, etc and each opens up separately. This is perhaps the best feature for me as I find the design on Facebook to be very crowded and I just find it untidy. With this I have the entire content on my social network profile organized very tidily and I know what updates do I actually need to begin with and go to.
The feeds are also categorized differently. Like you can view photo feeds to see what photos have recently been put up, commented on and liked by your friends. You can also alphabetically browse friends, see their walls and the pictures they have shared.
Those are just a few of the features and I personally like the status update feature. You can place a status update right from the app, add a photo or multiple photos to create an album. Plus you can also take a photo with your webcam and upload it directly to Facebook. Overall it just appears nothing less than impressive and worth having for every Facebook user. of course users will have some time adjusting to its interface but soon enough it will be the most used application to access Facebook.
You can download it here and give your feedback. The app is a developers release and once the final version is out you will have to uninstall it to run the new one. Do give us your feedback on this and what you think can be done to improve it?
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