Facebook is all set to expand its reach into the domain of instant messaging or IM as the engineering brains sitting in the Facebook Inc. development wing are preparing to release a XMPP interface for the website. As and when Facebook releases the XMPP interface, the more than 325 million users across the globe will be able to run Facebook chat on their desktops and mobile device regardless of the IM engines they use.

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol or XMPP is an open standard that was designed for the further enhancement of Instant Messaging. XMPP was designed and developed by the Jabber open-source community in the year 1999and has been considered as the de facto open standard for instant messaging. Since its inception, this protocol has come a long way with immense advancements such as, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as seen in Skype and Google Talk and the ability to transfer data and media files in a chat windows.

Until now, user have to be logged into the Facebook network, via the Facebook website to use the Facebook IM engine. However, when the XMPP protocol is releases on Facebook, it would give the users the freedom of logging into Facebook chat via any instant messaging client regardless of their login status in Facebook.

Via GigaOm.