Facebook Mail
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, confirmed that Facebook has indeed been working on an mail function that would be arriving shortly. The three features they are emphasizing are “seamless messaging” i.e. message through end-user device of choice (PC to phone etc), conversation history and a social in-box for message filtering. Let’s examine these points a little closer.
Facebook Mail Functions
SMS, Instant Message and E-mail are integrated. While this was possible before this involved quite a bit of set-up and Facebook mail will make it real time; allowing someone on a PC to message back and forth with someone on a Phone or other IM or SMS-capable device to have a natural conversation. Conversation history basically transcribes all conversations and saves them for the end-user. There is already some backlash over privacy concerns for this feature. It really shouldn’t be called a new innovation either as g-mail users who also make use of g-talk or g-mail messenger have benefited from conversation archiving for quite some time now. The final feature is message filtering in a “social inbox”, which is supposed to filter message and limit correspondence from outside/unknown contacts. Most e-mail clients have featured e-mail filtering since their inception, so again, this isn’t new.
The ease of use or the overall usability of the interface and how all of these options combine to form the new Facebook Mail will have to be the selling point for many users, particularly ones who already have a certain 
level of tech-savvy. Certainly a majority of the 500+ millions users will opt-in to at least give the feature a try, so it is sure to gain some traction. Some of the nearly 200 million g-mail users may be abstaining as their system already handles the majority of these functions already. The big catch will probably be the computer/phone cross-over user.
Communication Integrations
The big feature of Facebook Mail will be the cross-platform message. Joel Seligstein posted this on the official Facebook blog about ‘Seamless Messaging’:
Today I’m excited to announce the next evolution of Messages. You decide how you want to talk to your friends: via SMS, chat, email or Messages. They will receive your message through whatever medium or device is convenient for them, and you can both have a conversation in real time. 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.
So, assuming your phone supports working with Facebook, you can have a conversation with a phone and a computer or other messaging device at the same time. It also means it will send an IM as an e-mail for users who prefer to receive correspondence that way. While this was possible through some extended setup before, this will take care of the configuration for you. Most of the features being touted as new and innovative have been done before as we have mentioned. It appears that Facebook Mail will simply be collecting these functions into a one-stop experience which will be very appealing to a large portion of it’s user-base.
Tags: E-mail, Facebook, Facebook Messaging, Faceboook Mail, IM, Instant Messaging, Mail, SMS, SMS Messaging