Twitter is already a very active social network.
Updates are pushed in real-time, users can ping messages back and forth through the use of mentions (or @ replies, as they’re known) and Twitter even accommodates sensitive communication, through the use of direct messages.
It could be argued that Twitter is overly saturated with conversational tools, but Bonfire.IM would disagree.
A multi-browser web plugin, Bonfire.IM cleverly adds an instant messaging element to the Twitter service, as an alternative to direct messages. The IM service operates in a very similar fashion, requiring both users to be following one another, but once that’s out the way, Bonfire.IM closely resembles the Facebook Chat that we’ve grown to love.
If a mutually following Twitter user is online, they’ll show a green light next to their name. Clicking on said name will then initiate a conversation tab on the bottom of the browser, akin to the Facebook style, with no need to navigate away from the Twitter web page.
There’s no hiding the fact that Bonfire.IM closely resembles Facebook Chat, but Bonfire.IM’s Founder Josh Russell happily embraces this fact, even describing the service as “Facebook chat for Twitter”.
The introduction of this service will certainly help to eliminate some of the ‘chat clutter’ that affects the social network, evident when two people you follow are having a long-winded public conversation together through the use of @ mentions. This would be reliant on both individuals adopting the service, though.
There has also been much speculation about the value this service could provide for social networking accounts maintained by businesses, who could offer customer service support directly through Twitter; privately, and in real-time.
“We’re building Bonfire to service as many people as possible, and we have that in mind when considering every feature,” said Josh Russell.
The launch of Bonfire.IM comes at a time when Twitter are in the midst of rolling out their new ‘Activity Feed’ – a real-time update service that allows you to follow the actions of your fellow users, including a list of people that they’ve recently followed and any tweets that they’ve added to their favourite lists.
Again, this feature appears to be very similar (at first glance) to Facebook’s news feed. As such, Twitter, through corporate development and third-party plug-ins, looks set to tackle the social networking giant head on, in the war of functionality and features. As for how successful they’ll be, only time will tell.
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