Well its true, Firefox 17 was just recently and with it released a cool new feature which is the new Social Api, also known as the "Social Bar" or "Social Sidebar". With the Social API, you will be able to see incoming messages and notifications and also quickly begin chats with friends and colleagues. The whole idea behind the Social API is to be able to have a quick view into a site without having to switch back and forth between tabbed pages in the browser.