Facebook’s Modern Messaging System: Seamless, History, And A Social Inbox

Facebook’s Modern Messaging System: Seamless, History, And A Social Inbox



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Subscribe:Facebook’s Modern Messaging System: Seamless, History, And A Social Inbox
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MG Siegler 2 hours ago


We’re here today at the St. Regis in San Francisco where Facebook is unveiling what CEO Mark Zuckerberg is calling a “modern messaging system”.

Zuckerberg recalled talking to high schoolers recently and asking them how they communicate with one another. They don’t like email. “It’s too formal,” Zuckerberg noted. So about a year ago, Facebook set out to overhaul the system. But this isn’t just about email.

“This is not an email killer. This is a messaging experience that includes email as one part of it,” Zuckerberg said. It’s all about making communication simpler. “This is the way that the future should work,” he continued.

Here are the keys to what a modern messaging system needs according to Zuckerberg:

■seamless
■informal
■immediate
■personal
■simple
■minimal
■short
To do that, Facebook has created three key things: Seamless messaging, conversation history, and a social inbox. Essentially, they’ve created a way to communicate no matter what format you want to use: email, chat, SMS — they’re all included. “People should share however they want to share,” engineer Andrew Bosworth said.

All of this messaging is kept in a single social inbox. And all of your conversation history with people is kept.

Alongside the product on Facebook.com, this is going to work on their mobile applications as well. An updated iPhone app is launching shortly. It’s important that you can keep messages going while you’re on the go, Bosworth noted.

But you don’t need an app. It’s important to note that this can work with SMS too.

And yes, 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. And yes, IMAP support is coming soon too (but not just yet)

In order to make this work, “we had to completely rebuild the infrastructure that this system is build on,” Bosworth noted. People are aware of Facebook’s Cassandra system, but now they’ve built something new called hBase (working alongside the open source community again).

He said that 15 engineers have worked on this product — remarkably, this is the most that have ever worked on a single Facebook project.

Right now, this system is merging four main things: SMS, IM, email, and Facebook messages. Zuckerberg said that they’d consider other tech, like VoIP in the future. But right now this is mainly about consolidating text-based messages.

This messaging system will be rolling out pretty slowly over the period over the next few months, Zuckerberg said.

More: Zuckerberg: Our System Is Not An Email Killer. But If It Dies As A Result…



get widgetminimizeCrunchBase Information
Facebook
Website: facebook.com
Location: Palo Alto, California, United States
Founded: February 1, 2004
Funding: $836M

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users.

Facebook was founded by… Learn More
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Sdfjasdklfj 2 hours ago

welcome back,google wave

Flag diegueno and 47 more liked this Like ReplyReply oijiojojojs 1 hour ago in reply to Sdfjasdklfj

"this is not an email killer" lol he just dissed MG

btw this isnt wave, this actually makes sense.

edit: he just mentioned techcrunch again lmao
(Edited by author 1 hour ago)

Flag Andrew MacDonald and 9 more liked this Like ReplyReply Steve Evans 1 hour ago in reply to oijiojojojs

Exactly, and Wave would have made sense had it just been a way to take Gmail realtime (and back to email again).
Flag Andrew MacDonald and 2 more liked this Like ReplyReply facegoogle 36 minutes ago in reply to Sdfjasdklfj

Didn't wave fail in large part because it wasn't smoothly integrated into the larger interface? It didn't mesh as nicely with the Gmail experience--whereas this messaging functionality allegedly jives pretty well with our current use of facebook messages. By averaging the current facebook inbox with the operational realities of message communication, I think this new project certainly holds a lot more promise than Wave did.

It's all part of the Google vs. Facebook faceoff that I'm chronicling here:
http://facegoogle.wordpress.com :)
Flag Like ReplyReply EM @ KING.NET 1 hour ago in reply to Sdfjasdklfj

That's what I thought .. or the buzz...
Flag Like ReplyReply > TOO DANGEROUS space tourism! 1 hour ago in reply to Sdfjasdklfj



is this what Google hasn't reached with Wave???


Flag Like ReplyReply Eric Waters 1 hour ago

Sorry, I meant "Google Wave: Special Privacy Free Facebook Edition".
Flag Paul Tepper and 32 more liked this Like ReplyReply Bill Slade 1 hour ago in reply to Eric Waters

now with users!
Flag Benny the Icepick and 12 more liked this Like ReplyReply mjolnir 1 hour ago

Also, if email is to formal, I shudder to think what emails from teenagers must look like.does anyone know if gmail has a feature where I can filter out emails from anyone born after 1990?
Flag 21 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Austin 1 hour ago in reply to mjolnir

Way to generalize about us, idiot. It's kind of funny, actually, how you used the wrong "to" and then criticize the quality of emails from people like me.
Flag sam schillace and 23 more liked this Like ReplyReply Imthemomster 1 hour ago

Seriously folks??? What's the big deal. It's a free site. It doesn't cost you anything regardless, so let them do what they want with it? If you don't like a specific application just don't use it. Why all the negativity?

Imthemomster
Flag dendrobates and 14 more liked this Like ReplyReply Captico 1 hour ago

sounds like AIM or Google Chat... with facebook's privacy record, I'll be keeping my email on gmail and through my company's server. Besides, just because I want to email you does NOT mean I want you to interact with me on Facebook!!
Flag sarahx and 13 more liked this Like ReplyReply Mconnot 1 hour ago

What most people here are missing was the part where Mark said that he was speaking to high schoolers when this idea popped. I'm betting that most posters here are not high schoolers and like it or not, that's the group that will be driving the next phase of communication. Adapt or die folks...
Flag Armen M. and 11 more liked this Like ReplyReply Mike 1 hour ago in reply to Mconnot

I say that to the high schoolers. Adapt or die. When the high schoolers make it to the top of their world in 20-25 years, then they can make choices. Until then, sorry.
Flag Ben Kuryk and 4 more liked this Like ReplyReply AdamB 1 hour ago in reply to Mconnot

There was once a social network that tried to let high school age children determine its future roadmap. Some might say this company took that Whitney Houston song WAY too literally.

You may not remember them, but that social network was called MySpace.
Flag 4 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Adam Boalt 13 minutes ago in reply to AdamB

MySpace...MySpace...hmmm, that kind of rings a bell.

LOL, good point, though. The thing to remember is that high school kids grow up. And part of growing up is learning how to be professional and even "formal" when the situation requires it.

That's not to say that Facebook's new messaging system won't be a big success, just that "high school kids don't use email" doesn't necessarily translate into "email is doomed."
Flag Like ReplyReply PJ 1 hour ago in reply to Mconnot

Just because I'm not in high school doesn't mean I'm not adapting when I don't immediately jump at this. And it's funny that Twitter has higher usage among the 25-49 set than the teen set. Not every trend is set by 16 year olds. Besides, one could easily argue that the needs of businesses and the people in them outweigh the speed required to tell Jennifer that ZOMG I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAW MATT AT THE MOVIES WITH HEATHER.
Flag 4 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Samidh 1 hour ago

Facebook might have "social" in their DNA, but they sure don't understand the nuances of communication.

You can't just try to lump different communication channels into a single experience. Different channels exist for a reason-- each carry a profoundly different social expectation.

For example, when you IM/SMS someone, it is to express urgency. When you e-mail, you implicitly allow for more delayed yet detailed responses.

Converging these channels ignores the powerful fact that in many cases, the medium really is part of the message.
Flag 11 people liked this. Like ReplyReply JOE Houde 31 minutes ago in reply to Samidh

"Facebook might have "social" in their DNA, but they sure don't understand the nuances of communication. "

+1. I hate that so many podcasts suggest interacting with them on their Facebook pages. facebook is a pretty poor medium for keeping track of long, multi-user conversations. But, lots of people are on it, and that seems to be the only metric that is considered.
Flag 3 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Adam Boalt 12 minutes ago in reply to Samidh

That is an excellent point.
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply Jakers 28 minutes ago in reply to Samidh

right, I don't want all messages to have equal value.
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply Henrik Dahlgren 1 minute ago in reply to Samidh

I'm sorry but I think that you are to young to understand how the majority of the facebook users (weighted with the usage of facebook) is communicating.

Channels exists because they are created. Dialogs are carried over many channels...

Check your communication, do you realy care if it is a 3G connection 4G connection or fixed when you are sitting at home or do you care about the experience?

If you say I care, then I say you are still to old =)
Flag Like ReplyReply JC 1 hour ago

What a pile of crap. When you can no longer innovate... imitate. What is going to be so radically different? If you want social - update status/tweet, if you want personal - PM or email. Can anyone explain to me what the middle ground is here? I think FB just wants to take over everything that you would possibly want to do over the web. They will continue the up-sell / cross-sell march until they have a finger in every pie. With 500m users it's pretty hard to completely fail.

I live in Finland where your social security number gives you access to everything from the library, to benefits, healthcare and accessing personal records... soon FB will be your SSN on the web. You won't be able to make a comment, browse a page, make a purchase, have a conversation, read the news, masturbate or excrete without them knowing and using to sell you something.

I wish the anti-trust gorillas would put a halt to their insidious bullshit...

Flag sarahx and 8 more liked this Like ReplyReply dasein 1 hour ago in reply to JC

"And all of your conversation history with people is kept."

Facebook translation:

"And all of your conversation history with people is now ours, whether SMS, email, IM or internal messages. Forever."
Flag 11 people liked this. Like ReplyReply AnonymousCoward 22 minutes ago in reply to JC

Let's not underestimate the willpower of the open source community to combat such closed-ness. And with Google in possible danger, they may very well through their engineers into the effort as well.
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply Steve Evans 1 hour ago

If Google had integrated Wave and Gmail so I could take an email into a Wave (if participants were online) then add in SMS and you have FBMailChatSMS... Missed a big opportunity Google!
Flag AlienSix and 8 more liked this Like ReplyReply Mike 1 hour ago

Facebook didn't create HBase, it alreadt existed as an open-source alternative to Google's BigTable:

http://hbase.apache.org/
Flag 7 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Digigala 1 hour ago

I am not sure I personally want this. There are a few reasons:

1. I am a big proponent of privacy and FB makes me feel uncomfortable. They exacerbate that emotional concern -and I do recognize that it is 80% based on emotion and not fact.

2. I do not want seamless communications, I am fine with SMS'ing the people I want to SMS, mailing the people I want to mail and IM'ing the folks I want to IM. I am sure there are people that want that function, but on the iPhone for example, my battery power is already screwed by the end of the day. From what I have seen here, there will be push and pull in terms of messaging consumption.

3. I also want to keep my communications diversified.

I won't be using an @facebook email, but I am pretty sure some people will.


Flag Bhagaban Behera and 6 more liked this Like ReplyReply oijiojojojs 1 hour ago in reply to Digigala

but youre ok with gmail reading your emails for commercial reasons. amazing.
Flag dendrobates and 6 more liked this Like ReplyReply AnonymousCoward 1 hour ago in reply to oijiojojojs

Obviously you are smart enough to trust the Zuck over Brin and Page. Well done.
Flag 8 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Digigala 23 minutes ago in reply to AnonymousCoward

Again, I don't use Gmail, are you programmed to believe that the only alternative to fb mail is gmail?
Flag Like ReplyReply Jakers 29 minutes ago in reply to AnonymousCoward

Trust each with half of your info, never one with all of it.
Flag Like ReplyReply Digigala 24 minutes ago in reply to oijiojojojs

I use Gmail? that's news to me.

I use a private domain i.e. digigala.com for my mail. Where did I say I use Gmail?
Flag Like ReplyReply marc 54 minutes ago in reply to Digigala

If you are already leery of Fb security, know this, that the IC jumps in and out of your secured fb profile on a regular basis without you even knowing.
Flag Like ReplyReply dasein 1 hour ago

"And all of your conversation history with people is kept."

Facebook translation:

"And all of your conversation history with people is now ours, whether SMS, email, IM or internal messages. Forever."
Flag 6 people liked this. Like ReplyReply kmskala 1 hour ago

I'm not quite sure I understand what's broken with the way I/we communicate now? Some people prefer email, I email them. Some people I text. Others I pick up and call. It's not that difficult.
Flag sarahx and 5 more liked this Like ReplyReply Fusion 1 hour ago

Google Wave now with 90% less privacy.
Flag 4 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Yann Kempf 1 hour ago

As usual, every geek here find it's crap, but as Facebook is social, each of the 500M noob users will find it great because it's new and will play with it, and Facebook new tool will reign, where Google failed.
Flag 3 people liked this. Like ReplyReply JOE Houde 34 minutes ago in reply to Yann Kempf

Right. Just like Facebook places, which is being used by 4 of my 500 FB friends. OR The facebook "Relationship pages". Just because the geeks dislike it doesn't mean that noobs will like it.
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply john 1 hour ago in reply to Yann Kempf

Exactly the reason. The sheeples of facebook are not tech users.
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply Funny Isn't It 1 hour ago

I'm surprised MG didn't write the "Will Apple Kill the MP3 Tomorrow" article. The system that the author comments on is what the Zune marketplace does, and is available on WP7. Yet, there is no mention of this.
Flag diegueno and 2 more liked this Like ReplyReply Brian 2 hours ago

It's called Texting.
Flag Victor Panlilio and 2 more liked this Like ReplyReply facegoogle 47 minutes ago

Didn't wave fail in large part because it wasn't smoothly integrated into the larger interface? It didn't mesh as nicely with the Gmail experience--whereas this messaging functionality allegedly jives pretty well with our current use of facebook messages. By averaging the current facebook inbox with the operational realities of message communication, I think this new project certainly holds a lot more promise than Wave did.
Flag 2 people liked this. Like ReplyReply MrktMind 54 minutes ago

Seamless, all in one place communications would be very nice...... in a desktop app where I control my data instead of Fuckerstein.
Flag Israel Vicars and 1 more liked this Like ReplyReply Coleman 23 minutes ago in reply to MrktMind

Hehe, his name is Zuckerberg, not Zuckerstein.
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply Shu Wu 57 minutes ago

FYI, Facebook did not create hBase (it was started by Powerset). It's a distributed database that has always co-existed with Cassandra. They are optimized for different things.
Flag 2 people liked this. Like ReplyReply MadBomber 57 minutes ago

such hype. the question to ask is does this solve significant problems for any users. the devil will be in the details but in terms of the user's workflow, it doesn't sound like it makes it easier to communicate across contexts than what's available today. it's just another example of a product offering with a pretty obvious corporate benefit, and vague/debatable user benefit.
Flag 2 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Tim 1 hour ago

I'm twelve years old and what is this?
Flag 2 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Roll 1 hour ago in reply to Tim

Kid, go to sleep.. let the nerds play social monopoly..
Flag 3 people liked this. Like ReplyReply Mr X 1 hour ago

You'll just have to play around with it to determine if we got it right
- zuckerman
Flag Sam Davyson and 1 more liked this Like ReplyReply John C. Keyser 1 hour ago in reply to Mr X

TWSS.
Flag Sam Davyson and 3 more liked this Like ReplyReply Eric Waters 1 hour ago

Yeah, this looks like Google Wave: Facebook Edition. No wonder Google and Facebook have been slapping the crap out of each other...
Flag Victor Panlilio and 1 more liked this Like ReplyReply LoganDavisson 2 hours ago

when will it be live?
Flag 2 people liked this. Like ReplyReply thorsten 1 hour ago

i just hear all the time some buzzwords and "people you care"
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply kevin 1 hour ago

hey boz, please stop saying 'People You Care About' every two sentences it's really annoying and you're not steve jobs

thanks
Flag 1 person liked this. Like ReplyReply koolimbe 1 hour ago

Wave with priority inbox ;)
Flag AlienSix liked this Like ReplyReply Batman 1 hour ago

Um, I have Twitter. Thanks but no thanks, Mark.
Flag Eric Waters liked this Like ReplyReply Mr X 3 minutes ago

The new facebook.com email addresses is a poor idea without any elegance.
So now Facebook, the company, is reduced to just fb.com?
Will be confusing to alot of folks.
Flag Like ReplyReply Markus 8 minutes ago

Ye, someone has to stop them going for world domination. I am just wondering, the whole wallpost thing, did Mark come up with that or had that been done somewhere else?
Flag Like ReplyReply Benson 10 minutes ago

Sounds like World Dominence to me...own us at every level...I'm not into this at all. In fact Facebook is not all that appealing to me anymore...too much SPAM
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Facebook’s Modern Messaging System: Seamless, History, And A Social Inbox
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