Kevin’s Blog

In normal chat/IM programs, people are known by their handles, such as “lkjsdf12398.” This is a huge, gnarly problem.

Companies have been fighting this problem for years. For example, in Apple’s OS X, the built in Address Book integrates with chat programs, allowing Mac users to view either their buddies’ fake online handles, or real life names that were entered into the Address Book.

Facebook Chat uses real names, such as “John Doe.” This is a huge win. Users longer have to maintain the mental mapping between “lkjsdf12398″ and “John Doe.” As someone who used to manually add real names to his chat programs, I would like to personally thank the employee at Facebook who realized that this application was a perfect way to leverage the social graph.

Thank you.