Microsoft Advertising recently recently posted the results of research analysing how Indians spend their time online. The study, titled “Living with the Internet” was carried out by Microsoft Advertising, MEC and Mindshare, and it provides interesting results.

Indians were found to spend:

• 49% of their time communicating
• 35% of the time seeking information
• 22% of their time on entertainment activities
• 14% of the time creating content on digital spaces (status updates etc)
• 12% of their time making online transactions.

In addition, it was also found that 81% of time spent reading the news or looking for information, is planned. Similarly, 81% of activities such as communicating, online chatting and networking are also planned. Even downloading or streaming videos, playing games or listening to music are planned 60% of the time.

In contrast, activities such as updating blogs, uploading photos and online transactions are unplanned nearly 50% of the time.

Another issue being studied is the popularity of laptops versus smart phones. While it was found that both gadgets are equally popular for searches on the go, laptops are more popular for other activities.

Laptops were used for communication 51% of the time compared to smart phones 46% of the time. Laptops were used for entertainment 23% of the time versus 17% for smart phones and laptops were used for transactions 13% of the time compared to 8% for smart phones.

This information is especially important to marketers and brands planning to target the Indian subcontinent as the data shows a definite maturing of the online market, thereby enabling advertisers to connect better with their target audience online rather than having no option other than to advertise on television, billboards and newspapers.

Speculations have been running high since then in anticipation of what that ‘awesome’ new product could be.

Reuters initially suggested that this new product could be mobile or tablet related, as Zuckerberg had mentioned that the Seattle office has played a major role in the development of this product, and it is a known fact that their recently improved mobile site was developed in Seattle. If that is so, it could well be the launch of an iPad App.

It is also being speculated, that Facebook may now be ready to launch their new photo-sharing app for the iPhone.

Another possibility being considered is ‘Project Spartan’, which is an HTML-5 based competitor to Apple’s App store.

The official invites for the launch are now out, and contain two chat icons placed very conspicuously. This has now given rise tot eh idea, that the launch could have something to do with a new video chat service powered by Skype.

Facebook has been working on a desktop component of video chat, built on Skype. This service will integrate several features of Facebook and Skype.

If this is indeed the new product to be launched, it will help Facebook to tide over the recent launch of Google Plus, which has generated a lot of interest amongst users. It will also give Skype access to Facebook’s wide user base of over 750 million users.

The launch of such a service will also please Microsoft, which has recently bought over Skype.

The service has been launched primarily on university networks, which was Facebook’s initial target market. The service is geared to keep users logged onto the social network longer, thereby increasing opportunities to sell more advertising on Facebook.

A new chat bar has been introduced at the bottom of the page, which will always be present by default. This bar enables users to access their online friends list, chat settings, current chat window, online status etc. The service is AJAX based and does not require users to install any new software.

Conversations get highlighted in the chat bar with a red bubble whenever a contact comes online and sends the user a message. A user interested in pursuing the conversation can then open up the chat window by clicking on it. To get out of it, one just needs to minimise the window. To reopen a particular conversation, the user can just reopen ‘recent chat history’ with the same contact.

Privacy concerns have been considered by the Facebook development team. The post on the Facebook blog announcing the launch of the chat service explains that recent chats are saved across login sessions but not permanently. Users can instantly delete message history by clicking on the ‘clear chat history’ link in a particular chat.

If several chats are going on simultaneously, the user can pop each chat into its own window. The pop out window has tabs on the right. Users can press the keyboard shortcut Alt+Tab to access the chat service even without being on Facebook.com.

The online friends list mentions which contacts are currently online, or were recently active. All Facebook friends are automatically entered here, but they are allowed only with their real names. No pseudonyms are allowed. Hence everyone is assured of making contact only with known persons.

Keeping the online friends list open will thus make for a very interesting session and people may end up keeping Facebook open all day long, according to Justin Smith at Inside Facebook. Facebook has now moved the access to notifications from the top right of the start page to the chat bar. Some other features from the site such as the mini feeds will also shortly be taken into the chat world. If a person does not wish to chat while on Facebook, they can just mark their status as offline. Similarly one can choose whether or not to keep the online friends list open, and also whether to allow mini feeds or not into their chat window.

Initial reactions to the service announcement have been largely negative, with most bloggers and users complaining about the numerous instant messaging services already available and the lack of need for yet another. Impressions of the chat service itself and its implementation within Facebook have been more positive.