Watch out Gmail. Facebook is continuing to slowly roll out its updated messaging system. Most important in the update is that you now have a dedicated Facebook email address. Here are the top five things you need to know about the new update so you can make the most if it as the company continues to roll them out to users in batches:
Say hello to your new Facebook email address.
Most significant in the update is of course the creation of a Facebook email address for each user. The email address is based on the URL structure of your Facebook profile. For example, if your profile URL is www.facebook.com/username, your assigned Facebook email is username@facebook.com. Anyone can now send you messages to this address, regardless if you are friends with them. Facebook has redesigned the Inbox structure to reflect this aspect (read on). I have activated my address, but haven’t been able to successfully send a message to it from a non-Facebook email address – is anyone else having luck?
Without the Facebook app? Text message controls are here.
Another inclusion in the Messages update is a pretty prominent push by Facebook for the use of text messaging. You can now control your Facebook account — from sending a message to someone to searching – by sending texts to 32665 (FBOOK). This is perfect for people without smartphones or the Facebook app.
Once you turn on text messaging, Facebook also reportedly allows the texts you exchange with friends (who have also activated text messaging on Facebook) to be incorporated into your message history on Facebook. I haven’t been able to get this aspect to work with people at the office yet, but it would be a great way to aggregate communications with friends.
Want to play with the messages? Facebook has a widget where you can test text messages online to see their resulting effect here.
Sending new messages puts media front and center.
While we might have balked initially at Chatroulette, the truth is that video chat is being used by Gen Y and younger at increasing rates. (I was just speaking with a dad the other day who said their 11 year old son video chats his girlfriend every night.) While traditional email messages focus on text, Facebook is clearly putting new media forms front and center — starting with your photo as the main identifier (as opposed to an email address or your name), these messages feel much more personal.
New messages feature a To field, Message field, the ability to Attach a file, as well as the option to take (as opposed to attach) a photo or video. Clicking on the little camera icon brings up a popup connecting you with your computer’s mic and video camera. Pretty slick. On the flip side, there are NO formatting options (bold, italics, etc.) for text in the messages.
Tying back to SMS’ prominence in the new design, new messages also include to the option to also send the message as a text to the recipient (the recipient of course has to have activated this).
Inbox sanity measures are boldly basic.
As you would expect, the redesign of the entire inbox structure places a big focus on simplicity. To start, messages from friends on Facebook get placed in your Messages inbox, and messages from non-Facebook friends (including pages you Like) get placed in “Other.”
Within the inbox listing of messages, those unread are highlighted in blue and those which have already been read are not. Each message within the main listing includes a big photo of the sender, their name, first line of the email, a timestamp (rolling over that displays the exact date and time), and the ability to mark as read/unread and archive (both Gmail and Facebook are now using “archive” as opposed to “delete”).
Moving on to within an individual message, you have the option to take actions like block the sender, mark as junk, archive, delete, forward, and report as spam.
Search more specifically.
Searching is one of those features we often take for granted, but can be incredibly valuable when designed right — and especially when it comes to your email. Facebook seems to be off to a good start, keeping in line with its boldly basic inbox sanity features. When searching your messages, Facebook provides you the option to choose to search by type of message: you can choose to search for unread messages, archived messages, sent messages, or just those sent to your new Facebook email address.
Do you see yourself relying on your new Facebook email and shifting away from using your Gmail, Yahoo! or other personal email address? Let us know in the comments!
