On Monday, Facebook unveiled their new messaging system. This new system is a major change compared to their previous structure. Facebook currently handles about 4 billion messages a day.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated, "The new system will gradually roll out over the next few months." This system will initially be invite-only, but broader access will be available as the system progresses. Users will be able to request access to this feature on Facebook's site.
This new message system is primarily focused on three priorities: seamless integration across multiple communication channels, a single conversation history, and a "social inbox" for filtering messages. With this new feature, users are able to add a @facebook.com to their email address.
However, with this feature, there are no subject lines or cc fields. Instead of those, this new message system unifies conversations that are being used by SMS, chat, email, or Facebook messages. Also, all conversations will be saved in a history folder.
Facebook will see a lot of fierce competition when they enter the field as a new emailing source. Currently, Hotmail has 361 million users worldwide while Yahoo and Gmail have 273 million users and 193 million users respectively.
However, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has emphasized that this new message system isn't to overtake the other emailing sources. Instead, he states that the new messaging system is a system that includes email as one part of the system.
