When Facebook famously updated their internal chat service, it was widely ridiculed as being useless and annoying. Hejibits.com captured the tone of the reaction brilliantly. Such is life when major change is introduced, although, the ability to hide the chat sidebar seems to have salved some wounds caused by the update.

With that, we’ll call the new Facebook chat a push when it comes to success/failure. On the other hand, reaction to the newly-released Facebook Messenger app (for both the Apple and Google OS), at least on Twitter, has been largely positive.

Apparently, the lesson is this: Facebook chat sidebar on widescreen monitors, bad. Facebook chat on hand-held devices with smaller viewing areas when compared to widescreen monitors, good.

Sounds reasonable. Of course, the Facebook Messenger app was made simply for that reason, to message your Facebook clan. The chat sidebar on the non-mobile Facebook interfered with the overall experience, or something like that, anyway — as you can probably tell, this writer was not nearly as bothered by FB’s update chat functionality as others were. Nevertheless, the messenger app is winning where the chat functionality failed:

Regardless of the positivity the Facebook Messenger app is generating, people still haven’t forgiven Facebook chat for, well, existing:

It should also be noted, not all the reception for the app has been golden:

Thinking outside the box here, but the app could’ve come in handy over in England for organization purposes and for the subsequent arrests because people are dumb enough to arrange stuff like riots on Facebook:

Nevertheless, the following says plenty about the already-popular Facebook Messenger app:

Let’s not forget about poor Blackberry as, once again, RIM was left behind in the mobile device application department:

All that being said, perhaps the most honest reactions comes from The Empire:

That’s quickly becoming a novel idea, it seems.

So, does Facebook Messenger make up for the now-hideable failure that the updated Facebook chat was? Will it, like some suggest, take the place of SMS as the message medium of choice for a new generation? Doubtful, especially if a Facebook mass exodus ever happens. Google+ is still waiting patiently in the high grass, waiting to pounce.