Update: Facebook Messages in this form is not available anymore.
In a blog posting that just went live, Facebook's Joel Seligstein announced Facebook Messages, a new service for users to stay in contact with each other.
Information are scarce and there is not one screenshot of the interface. Still, here are the top features of Facebook Messages that we could gather from the article:
Facebook has created a tour of messages which is currently showing an error. It is likely that the tour will be available later today.
Update: Messages Tour is now accessible. You can request an invite to Facebook Messages on the page to be use the service earlier.
All your messages together
Get Facebook messages, chats and texts all in the same place.
Full conversation history
See everything you've ever discussed with each friend as a single conversation.
The messages you want
Focus on messages from your friends.
How do I upgrade to the new Messages?
Now when you view a conversation, you’re actually looking at a complete history of all the communication you’ve shared with that person on Facebook — it’s like having an ongoing record of your friendship.
We’ve also added a few key features:
Faster interaction: If you want, you can send messages just by hitting your Enter key, so the new Messages is as fast (and as informal) as an in-person conversation.
Integrated communication: No matter what you’re using to communicate (Facebook, mobile or email), your conversation streams quickly and seamlessly into one place.
Smart filtering: You’ll always see what’s important to you first – messages from the people you’re close to take precedence over mailing lists.
Revamped search: Search for either the person you were talking with or what you were talking about to quickly find your message and all the related context.
Adding people to group conversations: Loop new people into the conversation, giving them full access to everything that’s been said so far.
Forwarding: Pass individual messages along to other friends.
Unsubscribing, or removing yourself from a conversation: Leave a group conversation when you no longer wish to receive new messages.
Sending attachments: In addition to sending links, photos and videos, you can now attach external files to your messages.
Since your Facebook username is publicly viewable — much like a custom license plate number — this means that anyone who can see your public username (for example in a search) will be able to figure out your Facebook email address. However, you always have control over who can send you messages.
Please click on the following link to open the newsletter signup page: Ghacks Newsletter Sign up
Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.
Facebook: Reinventing the wheel one spoke at a time.
This might come to the delight of a large chunk of the social network giant’s users, and while this does push FB into a deeper level of communication and possibly lure more businesses to use the site, this is hardly groundbreaking. Even some smartphones have been integrating different messaging platforms on the client end to arrive at basically the same result. Add some filters and custom views and you pretty much have the same thing. In addition, I wonder how many users will be worried about Zuck and crew with their somewhat sketchy history of privacy protection having access to even more communications (read data) of their users?
I don’t think it can suppress the popularity of Gmail.
i dont need a facebook email, facebook food, car, editor, OS, PC, browser, etc. i have microsoft & google for that.
How about a facebook boxers, facebook donut, facebook facebook. Does anyone know where will all this end and is it all really so so important to our lives. Is anyone going to like a email address with @facebook.com????? Doesnt it sound a bit strange. This is beyond social networking, its like social intrusion without invitation.
I predict that Facebook Messages will be the first big fail of Facebook and more and more people will realise what facebook actually wants to own. It’s our privacy!