Facebook have announced their new messaging service which they claim heralds “the next evolution of Messages.”
Google Voice for text
Rather akin to a Google Voice for text-based communication, the new Facebook service brings your email, instant messages, and SMS text messages to a single destination.
You decide how you want to talk to your friends: via SMS, chat, email or Messages. They will receive your message through whatever medium or device is convenient for them, and you can both have a conversation in real time. You shouldn’t have to remember who prefers IM over email or worry about which technology to use. Simply choose their name and type a message
Person-based
The service features an unlimited conversation history that’s person-based, so that the chat can span emails, texts, and IMs, with your ‘social inbox’ only containing messages from your friends and their friends, while all other messages go into an ‘Other’ folder.
Niceties such as subject lines are regarded as non essential and it’s easy for users to leave conversations that ‘no longer interest them.’
Facebook say that they’ll be launching Messages and email addresses gradually and making it available to everyone over the next few months. Once you get an invite, you’ll be able to get started and also invite your friends to join you.
