PM360 DECEMBER 2010

LIFE STYLE

SOCIAL NETWORKS
Facebook Messages

Over the next few months, Face-book will be introducing its new Facebook Messages, giving users the option to set up an @facebook email account. But don’t let that @ sign fool you—this is not just email. Instead, the goal of this new system is to integrate email, chat, and SMS to create seamless messaging by aggregating all your messages from the same sender. You would receive a message by whatever method was most convenient for the sender and continue the conversation in real time, delete it, or archive it. All of one person’s messages would be saved in the same place, so that you’d have a complete history that contains all chat, email, and texts saved as a single conversation. The messaging system is modeled more closely on chat than on email, with no subject lines, cc, or bcc, and you can send messages by simply hitting the Enter key.

Facebook Messages will also feature a “social inbox” where your friends are made top priority. Your Inbox folder will contain only messages from your Facebook friends and their friends, while all other messages will go into the Other folder. This folder will include messages and emails from those not on Facebook, but you can easily move anyone from the Other folder into the Inbox folder (where all future messages from that person will be received). You can also make your Inbox folder more selective by pushing messages that are not from your friends into the Other folder. FB Messages, along with the new email addresses, will be launched over the next few months as users are asked to join, so they can get started and then invite their friends, too. —A.M.