Facebook launches unified messaging system

Facebook introduced Messages, a new unified messaging platform that promises to evolve the company from a social network to a full-on communications system rivaling traditional Internet portals like Google and Yahoo. Facebook Messages enables users to communicate in real time via the web or mobile device, leveraging SMS, email, chat or Facebook messaging--whichever medium is most convenient at a given moment in time. "There are no subject lines, no cc, no bcc, and you can send a message by hitting the Enter key," writes engineer Joel Seligstein on the Facebook Blog. "We modeled it more closely to chat and reduced the number of things you need to do to send a message. We wanted to make this more like a conversation." Seligstein adds that all Facebook Messages within a dialogue will be collected in one place regardless of whether they were sent over SMS, chat or email.

Facebook Messages will function as a "social inbox," the company explains--all communication will revolve around friends and family. "It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement," Seligstein notes. "It's not that those other messages aren't important, but one of them is more meaningful." Messages from sources other than personal contacts will go into a separate Other folder--messages originating from friends who are not on Facebook also will land in the Other folder, although users can move that conversation into the Inbox, with all future communications with that individual also filtered into the Inbox.

"We don't think a modern messaging system is going to be email," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a media event Monday--even so, the firm said it will provide an @facebook email address to every user who requests one. "This is not an email killer," Zuckerberg added. "We don't expect anyone to wake up tomorrow and say they are going to shut down" their existing email accounts.

Facebook now boasts more than 500 million users worldwide; more than 200 million are now actively using its mobile products across all platforms, up from just 65 million a year ago. In addition, Facebook is the most popular application across most operating systems according to Nielsen Company data published in mid-September: Fifty percent of iOS users have accessed the app within the last 30 days, compared with 45 percent of BlackBerry users and 32 percent of Windows Phone users. In addition, Facebook is the second most popular app among Android users (45 percent)--only Google Maps ranks higher, and just barely (46 percent).

For more:
- read this Facebook Blog entry

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