MySpace has finally announced the official beta release of its instant messaging service called MySpaceIM. This comes almost a year since the application was first unofficially made available.

The download page for the beta version of MySpaceIM lists some of the features as Instant Messaging of MySpace friends; one-click login to mail and bulletins; instant alerts for all requests, messages, and comments; and search features to find and view friends’ profiles with one click.

Testing the MySpaceIM service, I did not find any special features that are not offered by better established instant messaging clients such as Microsoft’s Live Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger, or AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Also, I noticed several bugs just using the application for less than an hour.

If MySpaceIM hopes to compete against the existing established instant messaging clients they will have to develop better features and a more stable platform. But then again, MySpace users have grown accustomed to bad design and software errors, so this might just be part of the company’s business strategy.