Submitted by “Popular social networking site Facebook today announced it is rolling out a whole new messaging system over the next few months that ‘isn’t just e-mail’, but integrates four common ways users communicate: email, Facebook messages and chat, and SMS, and archives it all in a single thread.” Will not succeed. Email/Facebook is free, SMS isn’t, especially not when those tiny 160-character messages are getting body-scanned or violated when crossing borders. I’d hate to use this technology only to end up with a massive phone bill.
How would it end up with you getting a massive phonebill? It’s not like you’re paying for the SMS messages you recieve. At least I hope you dont, if you do you’re getting screwed.
Also, what has the body-scan links got to do with this? Nothing really, so why include them?
Edited 2010-11-16 00:03 UTC
Absurd as it sounds, I believe that *is* the case through much of the US – providers charge for both incoming and outgoing SMS. I’ve heard the same complaint from others when SMS notifications are mentioned…
That’s hilarious. It’s as absurd as if I had to pay for every letter and parcel people send me regardless if I had asked them to or not.
However, the fact that US mobile phone users pay for their mobile voice service, incoming and outgoing (same with SMS) enables services like Google Voice, where you can have VOIP calls forwarded to your mobile without having to worry about costly per-minute fees charged to incoming calls. Then you can enroll in unlimited voice and SMS plans, and forward stuff to yourself to your heart’s content. And that encourages innovation, because the service providers can just send the messages or make the calls, and don’t have to worry about who’s going to pay for them.
Uhm I’m not really following. How does paying for inbound enable Google Voice more than not paying for inbound? Everyone else never have to worry about paying for inbound calls.
And wait, you’re paying for inbound calls too? Oh my God. Seriously? What is this? Cold-war era USSR?
So it’s just like everywhere else? Only everywhere else you can do this even without an unlimited plan.
An exactly how does that spur more innovation than never paying for inbound calls and SMS and only paying for outbound? We dont have to worry either, the sender/caller is always the one paying.
Edit
Oh wait, I know what you want to say. The gigantic scam that is the stonage US mobile system forces companies to figure out innovative workarounds? It’s a bit like saying that the chinese government spurs innovation by being so oppressive though.
Edited 2010-11-17 00:04 UTC
Google voice won’t forward to a UK mobile phone because it would cost them a fortune.
While I can’t answer for UK (and Twitter) Google has no problem sending me SMS messages in Manila. I’m guessing they have a unlimited deal with the carriers or something.
And similarly, Twitter won’t integrate with a UK phone for SMS for the same reason.
First of all I am a heavy user of email. I use it a lot in my university studies as well as for forum notifications. All my addresses are connected to a single web based account where I handle all email, from anywhere at any time. So first of all, Facebook will have to let me use my previous email addresses for me to even consider trying it out.
Next up is the fact that I don’t want SMS messages in my email conversations. They don’t belong there. Maybe I am old fashioned but even on my phone I have a clear separation between email and SMS, I like it that way. However, I am flexible and I could see myself trying it out just to see if maybe I am too conservative.
However, the idea has potential and could be implemented pretty nicely. However, not by Facebook. There is no way, at all, that I will ever let Facebook handle all my messages. I even trust Google more than I trust Facebook with such information. I only trust Facebook with my Mafia Wars clicks, my occasional likes of a friends status and some of my photos with decreased quality.
I even asked my computer-illiterate girlfriend what she thinks and the first thing she said was: Facebook? Not gonna use it, not with their security.
I was amazed that she even knew something about that subject. It shows that Facebook’s handling of personal integrity has (somewhat) spread to non-geek people (around me).
I hope someone else does something like this, though. Hopefully with great tools for migration.
For now: no “Like” from me.
I liked this better when it called Google Wave.
very different actually, this is basically an agregator for all you messages that consolidates all you conversations with one person into a single stream. Not a bad concept really, but not enough to drag me back into facebook.
Wave tried to create a new protocal that could replace everything, and they didn’t let it aggregate much, which I think was a mistake because that would given it a use while they tried to get a critical mass of users on board, which never quite happened.
This facebook thing probably won’t go the way of wave, and I can see a lot of people using it. The only reason I still even have a facebook account is that a few people I know are just damn hard to reach any other way. This thing will play well with people like that.
I prefer running my own mail host.
“I prefer running my own mail host.”
Which was the good part/idea of Google Wave.
Edited 2010-11-16 12:16 UTC
Well.. You might be in luck then. The Wave guy just defected to Facebook not too long ago. Wave is an open protocol. What do you think he’d want to use in the future?
As it currently is, its less open than wave, but a better implementation of the idea. Because instead of replacing existing communication systems, it combines existing ones that are already in heavy use. The lack of existing email integration really just killed wave.
I have email server and sometimes I’m offering nice email names for friends. The fact is, not that much people wants email. I plan to run a survey, like “Do you use email in personal communication or social networks”. As I predict, many people writes to their friends over social networks and the good ol’ email will be forgotten after some time in personal communication. I’m not talking about official company mails. But even companies, especially smaller and if they are selling something, tend to make a Facebook page or twitter.
So, I guess this FaceBookMail mix will make it and people will use it.
Also a question for you – do you still use email to communicate with friends?
Maybe it’s a cultural difference, but I actually have never contacted a friend via social media before. Nor do I know anybody that contact friends in such a way.
Like it or not e-mail *is* identity on the current web. You can barely participate on the web without an e-mail address and it’s keyed to just about every user-account.
Google Wave failed because it was yet-one-more-thing-to-check. They should have layered it on top of GMail, but they didn’t.
Facebook has the “everything else” and they’re tacking on e-mail, and Google has e-mail and keeps failing to tack on the “everything else”.
I don’t know, tying it to one thing is a bad idea. It is not open, the Wave-protocol was/is open. You could run your own server.
But why not use XMPP (think Jabber) or if you like something like Twitter: StatusNet ?
They are both open, you can run your own server or find a provider which will run it for you.
All without the issues we see now with Facebook/privacy (or should I just say: vendor lock-in)
Edited 2010-11-16 12:21 UTC
They’re all as bad as each other.
Home servers should be cheap and easy to setup. Right now, installing your own mail server is an extremely difficult task. This *should* be as easy as installing Firefox.
If any of us want privacy, this situation will have to change.
While I’m not technically challenged.
I’d be happy if most people could just use the provider of their choice.
With open protocols, both would be possible.
Edited 2010-11-17 23:31 UTC
I’ve long thought it would be interesting to see the NNTP protocol (Usenet) extended to handle modern social networking functionality. But, for better or worse, I think that the “web/HTML as the mediocre-but-universal interface to everything” trend is irreversible at this point.
That said, I’ve been playing around with some open source collaboration/social networking apps lately. There are two I’ve found fairly decent so far: Elgg (facebook-like) and OpenAtrium (more of an intranet-style app, built on top of Drupal).
Edited 2010-11-16 19:01 UTC
That’s the way I feel about Facebook’s current message system; it feels and acts (to me, anyway) like sort of an afterthought. I don’t like it when people send me messages on there, because I’m not using it for that purpose. I’ll go read a message on there and don’t have a way to flag it for follow-up later. Next thing you know, someone’s irritated with me because I totally forgot about that message.
I felt sort of the same way about Google Buzz, too. It had more of a tacked-on feel, than the feel of a polished, well-integrated product. I tried it for a while, but ultimately couldn’t be bothered with it.
That said, I’m curious about the Facebook messaging system, and will at least check it out when it becomes available.
“According to a research, the older users still prefer email as a main form of online communication, whereas the younger users prefer SMS messages, rather than face-to-face, email and voice calls. The research took place in US. ” Geez !
I’m only 30 year old from Europe, but I guess I’m already old 
Facebook can hope to take away my real email address, encrypted, running under my own domain, with my own web server. More annoying notifications and messages ? No, thanks, I’m OK with rather passive form of online communication, but mostly seeing people live while drinking beer …. and this, I guess, makes me old and boring 
I like myself boring …. Agree with Kroc above me about Wave.
Edited 2010-11-16 09:30 UTC
Imagine you sign up for facebook email, or whatever. Then sometime later you get bombarded with adverts and other spam, because facebook sold your details to other companies. On top of that, all of your contacts which aren’t even on facebook, get the same spam, because facebook scan every line of your private emails and extract whatever information they want.
I’m pretty sure, whatever facebook launch will be a big success, because there are so many dumb fucks that sign up for just about anything.
Making stuff up doesn’t make them true.
Hey, just like Google.
Because only dumb fucks use facebook. Right.
How does giving Facebook access to all of my private accounts on the Web help Mark Zuckerberg meet girls?
Edited 2010-11-16 16:46 UTC