Facebook Messaging: Awesome

You don't go after Google with search like Bing did. You go after it from an angle. Call it social, call it Facebook. And so I had no idea what Facebook's Gmail killer application would look like. That was the metaphor that had been making the rounds. Facebook is not calling it email. Facebook is calling it messaging.

Facebook Blog: See the Messages that Matter: Between mobile devices and the Internet we can be more connected today than ever before, but there is still a feeling that the technology can also act as a barrier between us. .... the next evolution of Messages ..... You shouldn't have to remember who prefers IM over email or worry about which technology to use. Simply choose their name and type a message. ..... All of your messages with someone will be together in one place, whether they are sent over chat, email or SMS. You can see everything you've discussed with each friend as a single conversation. ..... From "hey nice to meet you" to "do you want to get coffee sometime" to "our kids have soccer practice at 6 pm tonight." .... It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement...... Instead of having to worry about your email address getting out, you're now in control of who can actually reach you. ..... Relatively soon, we'll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other.

Facebook has not disappointed. The expectations were high. They have been met.



When Google launched Gmail, they had search. Forget digging through your folders. Just do search. Well, Facebook has social. And they have done this in a way, it can not be copied. You don't have the social graph, do you? This is a master stroke.

Next stop: Facebook Voice to compete with Google Voice. Who needs a phone number? I can't remember mine.

TechCrunch: Facebook’s Modern Messaging System: Seamless, History, And A Social Inbox: a “modern messaging system”. ..... about a year ago, Facebook set out to overhaul the system ..... Seamless messaging, conversation history, and a social inbox. ..... everyone can get an @facebook.com email address if they want. But they don’t need to get one — you can use any email address. ...... 15 engineers have worked on this product — remarkably, this is the most that have ever worked on a single Facebook project. ..... Zuckerberg said that they’d consider other tech, like VoIP in the future
Zuckerberg: Our System Is Not An Email Killer. But If It Dies As A Result…: the idea of Zuckerberg calling for the death of email is truly terrifying .... He noted that email is too cumbersome. There’s a subject field, a formal greeting, a closing.

You don't kill search with search. You don't kill email with email.