While the FB chat layout has its many benefits such as non-techy users will be (most likely) used to it, the small chat area really isn't enough for big sites such as HN or Reddit where there can be many many users online at once.
It would be nice if it could plug into fb chat, google+, AIM/AOL, etc. however, I'm not quite sure how viable of an option that is.
It also seems that anyone can make a chat (I could be wrong), but that seems like a silly add-on for a site with as many users as HN because it will only take one troll to bother everyone.
Yes, it would be nice if you could move it to the side. With widescreen monitors the horizontal space is often more than 50% unused (and it is on HN on my screen). So you can use the entire right half of the screen for chat and you wouldn't use precious vertical space.
While the FB chat layout has its many benefits such as non-techy users will be (most likely) used to it, the small chat area really isn't enough for big sites such as HN or Reddit where there can be many many users online at once.
It would be nice if it could plug into fb chat, google+, AIM/AOL, etc. however, I'm not quite sure how viable of an option that is.
It also seems that anyone can make a chat (I could be wrong), but that seems like a silly add-on for a site with as many users as HN because it will only take one troll to bother everyone.
P.S.
Awesome Job