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On page 13 they quote peak inbound traffic as 1gb/second.

Would this be a gigabit or gigabyte? Usually I would just assume gigabit but in the case of facebook i dont feel so hasty...

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I guess it's Gb (Gigabit). Since the only traffic Facebook Chat has is presence, which is handled using separate C++ servers. Out of 500M users (350M active users) not many of them use chat, maybe because by design it feels disconnected from the rest of the site.

Do you have any sources to back up that claim? Among my friends Facebook Chat has entirely replaced MSN Messenger.

anything can replace MSN Messenger ;)

Exactly. And everyone in europe used to use MSN messenger. Now I expect they use FB chat. My non tech friends either use FB chat, or they dont use IM.

MSN Messenger had been sitting on the IM throne in Denmark for a couple of years until Facebook Chat came along.

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