The number of ways to
keep up with Twitter and Facebook without visiting the pages seems to be increasing exponentially by the hour. For users of Firefox,
Friendbar is an add-on that will keep you constantly aware of goings on in the two popular social networking sites.
Friendbar adds another toolbar to Firefox, and has two thickness settings, depending on your preference of photo size. The large photo size is probably too thick, but it depends what you're doing in your browser. Friendbar's settings allow you to choose the number of messages in the feed at any one time, the speed of the cycle and to toggle a sound alert for incoming messages. Be warned, if you have very large busy networks that will probably drive you nuts, so turn it off!
The functionality in Friendbar is surprisingly deep for a toolbar; you can tweet and update your Facebook status at the same time, and there are message buttons next to each update. With Twitter you can do everything from the friendbar, though hitting message on a Facebook friend will open a Facebook tab in Firefox.
Personally, having a feed moving every few seconds gets distracting, and I find the more static tools like Alertthingy, or Yoono more useful and less intrusive. However, if you can live with the added business Friendbar adds to Firefox, Friendbar is a flexible and functional add-on
Friendbar is a useful, though possibly productivity ruining, add-on for Twitter and Facebook fiends.
