Notes on Facebook Messaging/Email Announcement
November 15 2010 by Jason Peck ~ 3 CommentsToday, Facebook announced it is revamping its internal messaging system. Their goal is to bring together SMS, chat, Facebook messages and email (including giving users an @facebook.com email address) to create a more integrated messaging system based on conversations.
Here are the three key features:
- seamless messaging
- conversation history
- social inbox
Seamless messaging and conversation history
The new system is modeled on chat more than email. Instead of having multiple threads or conversations between the same two people, you’ll have one ongoing conversation with people. One thing email users will notice right away is that there aren’t subject lines; it’s just one conversation thread between two people (others can be added to the threads).
The social inbox
Conversations will be organized into folders or sections based on your relationships and social graph. The default section shows messages from friends and is designed to be something people look at multiple times per day. There is an “other” section for things like bills or other messages that people may not care as much about. Lastly, there is a junk folder.
Privacy settings
This will be really interesting. They’re giving people a ton of control over privacy. You can change your settings so that only friends can message you. If someone that isn’t your friend tries to send you a message, it will automatically be bounced.
Key takeaways
It’s a little too early for takeaways, but as Mr. Zuckerberg said himself, “This is not an email killer.”
But it is another shift towards more real-time, simple and non-formal communications. With the unification of different types of messaging, it makes sense that people will spend even more time with Facebook and its products. Also, with more people putting their interests and likes into conversations, Facebook advertisers will probably be able to do even more targeting. One thing I’m not sure of is the lack of subject lines, which, for me, are pretty valuable in helping determine a message’s importance.
With more than 350 million people sending about 4 billion messages per day on Facebook, this will certainly be interesting to watch. What do you think?
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