Facebook announced today that it is integrating e-mail, instant messaging and texting into its own messaging system on Facebook.com. Facebook will be slowly rolling this out over the next several months and right now it is an invite-only feature.
What's interesting is that every Facebook user can sign up for an @facebook.com e-mail address that will be linked to their Facebook Messages. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explicitly stated at today's event that it is not trying to displace Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail but trying to integrate it into Facebook.
It seems Facebook is trying to bridge the generations: old = e-mail; young = SMS, IM. But, do the generations want to be bridged on this massive scale?
I want to use this Facebook messaging for my SMS-happy friends. I'm trying to wean all of my friends off of SMS so that someday I can just chuck my SMS plan. So, if they text me through Facebook, I can still get it instantly since I have Facebook push notifications set on my iPhone. That would be cool.
Mass messaging would also be easier since you would only have to write one message and then choose where to send the message for each person.
What do you think? Would you use the new Facebook Messages and/or use the @facebook.com e-mail address?
No comments:
Post a Comment