Facebook unveils a new system of messaging, which is sure to be welcomed both by people who stand by emails and those who love chatting online and send text messages. Before the press conference, which took place on November 15 in San Francisco, online mass media was speculating about FB’s possible launch of so-called ‘Gmail Killer.’ But the long-rumoured service turned to be not the case—instead of the new e-mail platform, Mark Zuckerberg introduced “The New Messages” service, which unites virtually all the ways of modern communication (barring video and voice chats).
«There was a lot of press leading up to this saying this is an e-mail killer. This is not an e-mail killer. It’s a messaging system that has e-mail as one part of it. I don’t expect people to wake up tomorrow and say, ‘I’m going to shut down my Yahoo account or my Gmail account.’ People are going to be able to have facebook.com email addresses but this won’t be the primary way people use this system,» said Facebook CEO.
The new service enables over 500 million users of the most popular social network in the world to store all their messages—emails, FB messages, SMS and IM—in one place. The new system is designed not only for those registered at Facebook—people, who don’t have a profile on the website, will also be able to send messages to and receive them from others networks users. “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. They will receive your message through whatever medium or device is convenient for them, and you can both have a conversation in real time,” writes Joel Seligstein, the Engineering Manager in charge of Facebook’s new Messages product, in a related post on the corporate blog.
Facebook also provides an @facebook.com email address to people registered on Facebook so that they could send and receive emails. All the messages will be stocked in one place, but those from users’ friends (and their friends) will come to the Inbox, while others will be directed to the Other folder. Additionally, Users will be able to exclude messages, coming from people they don’t know. Facebook is also looking to provide voice chat to its users, still it doesn’t specify when it will arrive.
The new service, which has been developed for 15 months, is to be rolled out over the coming months. Watch the video to learn more about the Messages.