Facebook's new messaging system mashes up SMS, e-mail, IM
- Monday, 15 November 2010 13:57
"This is not an e-mail killer. This is a messaging system that has e-mail as part of it."
That's how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company's revamped messaging system, introduced at a special press event in San Francisco today. The more-than-just-e-mail system is meant to consolidate all of a user's interactions with other people—whether it's via SMS, Facebook messages, or e-mail—into one spot. Of course, Facebook wants it all to live on its own servers.
Zuckerberg started out by saying that teenagers don't use e-mail because it's too slow, but older folks still depend on e-mail to communicate with friends and family. Someone stuck in the middle might find it difficult to manage communications with different people on different mediums—I might have to text my 16-year-old cousin to get any kind of response, but e-mail my 90 year old grandfather.
"I'm always keeping a lookup table in my head of who I need to reach out to and how to get ahold of them, and it should just be two things: a person and a message," said Facebook director of Engineering Andrew Bosworth.
