Facebook's social inbox

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

http://gigaom.com/2010/11/15/meet-the-new-new-facebook/

I'm of the opinion social media isn't really so social, and I only play pretty much because I have to professionally.

But even I have to admit this is a huge strategic building block for facebook. Google must be crapping their pants. (or filling their hotpots)

But what do I know - what do the techies and social junkies on CP think?

Anyone tried the social inbox yet? I don't have an invite but shouldn't take more than a day or so.

[theonlywhiteout]

What is it?

[oilfan69]

http://gigaom.com/2010/11/15/faceboo...-social-inbox/

[theonlywhiteout]

I still dont get it.

[Regulator75]

^^^

[llama64]

I'm glad someone is at least looking to replace email. Email is a dirty, dirty hack of a technology that should be extinguished from our lives.

But... I'd rather not let Facebook control my online messaging. When their "social messaging" technology becomes an open protocol, then I'll take a look.

[Mazrim]

I guess for the obsessive facebook users out there, this is pretty nice. I'll stick to the "old fashioned way" of checking my gmail account on the computer, and looking at SMS on my phone.

[Barnes]

Someone has come up with a way to manage all of your communication.

Yay!

It's Facebook.

Boo!

[Yamer]

I'm with theonlywhiteout in not quite getting this. How does this differ from sending someone a message over FB? Is it just a smart email that only your 'friends' can access? I don't comprehend how can this be better than what I have with my service provider. Unless this is all meant to be a more personal way of contact, which is already accomplished with the messaging system already in place.

Still looking for a 'smart' email that can block certain addresses or at least remember what I classified as 'junk' so that it doesn't show up again. For something that has been around almost since the beginning of the internet, email has advanced very little over many years.

[OBCT]

I think this "concept" has the potential to be extraordinary. Of course, I also thought that about Google Wave (which Google inadvertently murdered due to poor marketing, sluggish roll-out and sloppy/incomplete feature implementation early on).

Do I expect this to become a massive success in short order? Asbolutely not. Why? Because it's Facebook at the helm.

As great as the concept of FB is, the implementation has remained poor throughout it's growth. I completely gave up no it's chat app almost a year ago because it sucked SO BAD (and I'm pretty patient about stuff). I assume it still sucks, but is so handy that people continue to use it despite itself. It actually boggles my mind that Facebook chat was/is as bad as it was/is.

I have no faith in FB making this work. Until they prove otherwise, this gets a massive "meh" from me.

I guess I'll have to "live with" email and SMS........

[fredr123]

More explanation here:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-me...ver-009258.php

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=452288242130

The Social Inbox



It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement. It's not that those other messages aren't important, but one of them is more meaningful. With new Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately.

If someone you know isn't on Facebook, that person's email will initially go into the Other folder. You can easily move that conversation into the Inbox, and all the future conversations with that friend will show up there.

You can also change your account settings to be even more limited and bounce any emails that aren't exclusively from friends.

This kind of message control is pretty unprecedented and people have been wanting to do this with email (and phone calls) for a long time. Messages reverses the approach to preventing unwanted contact. Instead of having to worry about your email address getting out, you're now in control of who can actually reach you.

[Phaneuf3]

It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement. It's not that those other messages aren't important, but one of them is more meaningful. With new Messages, your Inbox will only contain messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an Other folder where you can look at them separately.

Ugh... this just seems all kinds of wrong.

First of all, the kinds of messages that are sent on facebook (e.g. "LOLZ!! WE GOT SO WASTED LAST WEEKEND!!1 TAGGING YOU IN THE PIX!") are more important than bank statements and bills?
Second: who in their right mind is going to trust facebook with their bills and bank statements?!

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by llama64

I'm glad someone is at least looking to replace email. Email is a dirty, dirty hack of a technology that should be extinguished from our lives.

How so? The underlying protocol is simple, easy to implement, universally available, and pretty efficient for its intended purpose.

[Flames0910]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

who in their right mind is going to trust facebook with their bills and bank statements?!

Yeah...same for business and all kinds of goodness.


Better Facebook mailing is great and all, but it's just another tool. Seriously, communications is pretty saturated - how many more tools can we realistically handle? (especially considering network effects)

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

Better Facebook mailing is great and all, but it's just another tool. Seriously, communications is pretty saturated - how many more tools can we realistically handle? (especially considering network effects)

I'd say we're pretty close to that threashold, seems like Apple's Ping has fallen flat with a flop.