Maintaining an ongoing conversation on Facebook is annoying and there’s one reason why; you need to be logged in and have your web browser open whilst doing it!
As much as Apple has tried to integrate Facebook and Twitter features in to OS X, being able to chat to your friends and family isn’t one of them. Fortunately, there are apps like Chat Heads that are good looking and get the job done, but if you take the ‘less is more’ approach with your Mac apps, then integrating in to OS X’s native Messages app is the best way to go.
So, if you want to boost your productivity by getting off Facebook without losing the ability to communicate with friends & family, here’s how you do it:
1) Go to your Facebook profile and grab your username from the URL. This will be whatever comes after www.Facebook.com/your username
2) Once you have that, head over to the Mac’s Messages app and on the menu bar click: Messages > Add Account.
3) Once the small window pops up, click on “Other messages account…” and select Jabber. Under “Account Name”, enter your Facebook username from above, followed by @chat.facebook.com along with your Facebook password. Then hit Create.
4) In your messages app, you’ll now be able to search for Facebook friends and send them messages directly from your Mac’s native Messages app!
This isn’t a perfect solution, but considering it involves so little effort, give it a shot and let me know how it works out for you!
