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December 6, 2007

Facebook Messages: Small Change, Big Impact.

Michael Arrington

60 comments »

Dear Facebook: Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

In August Facebook opened up their messaging system to allow people to add normal email addresses. I wrote a post praising the change, but I specifically asked for more:

Facebook makes you log on to the site to read messages/emails from your friends. They’ll send a note to your normal email address when a new message comes in, but they make you log on to Facebook to actually read it.

I rarely do that, and have missed some important messages from people trying to contact me. As a next step, I think Facebook should offer to forward the actual messages to an outside email address (and/or provide a password protected RSS feed). Eventually Facebook should offer full POP or IMAP support for their email. They can still restrict it so that you can only receive messages from friends, but at least you could access it from your desktop or web based mail application.

Before tonight, Facebook just sent an email saying that a new message was received, forcing me to click on the message and log into Facebook before I could actually read it.

Tonight Facebook changed that policy. Suddenly, Facebook messages are actually forwarded to my outside email address, letting me read it and decide if it’s important enough to click on to Facebook and respond.

This is great. It’s frickin wonderful, even. And Facebook clearly did this even though it reduces page views from people clicking on those messages just to see what they say.

Ok, next step. Just admit that this is a full on webmail application and give me IMAP, or at least POP, access to the account.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 12:34 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Angela Hayden

    December 6th, 2007 at 12:42 am

    Fantastic. I hated logging on everytime I got a message. Be nice if we could email messages to our contacts directly from our web client.

    Sincerely,
    angela hayden
    art goddess

  2. Silicon Valley

    December 6th, 2007 at 12:44 am

    You are right, this will be very convenient.

    Obviously, their previous policy was solely to increase visits and pageviews.

    Perhaps, they felt the need to be more considerate after the privacy controversy.

  3. facebookjunkie

    December 6th, 2007 at 12:51 am

    THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! FACEBOOK!

    This will help me beat my serious facebook addiction. Seeing as now I can simply click out of Thunderbird, versus spending countless hours clicking on interesting links in my news mini feed, wasting my life away.

    This is probably not what Facebook wants to hear though.

    But…this is definitely more convenient…

    Maybe it will make for the whole Beacon mishap?

    On second thought…

    naaannn….

  4. What's Hot Today.com

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:01 am

    Logging on everytime you receive a message is a pain in the rear. Nice improvement.

  5. So even though he’s French

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:03 am

    What do you mean “So even though he’s French, his advice, when given, is worth listening to.”???

    Does this we should attack France instead of Facebook privacy???!?!?

  6. Search Engine Optimiation

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:04 am

    I suppose you still have to log in to reply, so they still get the hits. If people keep logging in for a message that is of no use to them, they will stop logging in. If they log in only to answer important messages, then they will stay part of the community for longer, perhaps?

  7. Vero Pepperrell

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:13 am

    I’ve come across the same scenario you just described where important messages were missed out on because I couldn’t necessarily log in at that very moment, so I’m thrilled to see this change.

    It’s great to see companies like Facebook thinking about usability and user experience rather than purely focus on the clicks and stats they use to show growth in the site.

  8. 113.com

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:18 am

    So facebook gave up driving the idea that email is dead?

    Or too much afraid of being accused of “just another AOL walled-garden”?

    In any case, long live email!

  9. chris

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:22 am

    Facebook Facebook Facebook. I’m personally sick of the word/site. The sooner they go away the better in my opinion.

  10. 113.com

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:23 am

    And, this Beacon thing, as it turned out, is more like mainstream media that have the most influence.. write one (Beacon), get two free… (Opt-in, Email).
    That said, MA of TC deserves some credit :-)

  11. Faramarz

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:34 am

    Michael, your voice carries a lot of weight. Nicely done buddy!

  12. sky

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:46 am

    I just found all these social network things nothing
    exciting technically. FB forward email to an outside email
    account???

  13. Donal

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:54 am

    As little as I use MySpace, I wish they would do the same. Especially as MySpace is blocked in work.

  14. Nagu

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:01 am

    Thanks Facebook..It would drastically reduce number of page views but would increase user base bcoz of ease of usage.

  15. alan p

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:32 am

    Heck, who needs pageviews now that all those commercial sites are punting every user’s data your way, Facebook or No?.

    Come to think of it, who needs a Social Network…too much aggro ;)

  16. Alan Brown

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:33 am

    its probably just a bug :-)

  17. Love Hate Tech

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:43 am

    Another step towards FB domination.

  18. Zergrinch

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:53 am

    It doesn’t take that much to please you, does it, Mike? :p

    (Now, if only the other social networking sites would follow suit!)

  19. Hugo

    December 6th, 2007 at 3:28 am

    We can see your mail url!
    6362334139 wasn very secret, was it?

  20. John Moulton

    December 6th, 2007 at 3:31 am

    RSS feed FTW

  21. Outraged

    December 6th, 2007 at 3:39 am

    revolutionary as it may be, I give my “friends” my “email address” so they can contact me directly.

  22. Dennis Eusebio

    December 6th, 2007 at 4:35 am

    @Outraged

    That is revolutionary! lol.

    Exactly what I was thinking.

  23. David

    December 6th, 2007 at 4:39 am

    Cool, now how about giving people an update in the Beacon fiasco instead and them trying to continue spying on us.

  24. Keonda

    December 6th, 2007 at 5:12 am

    You don’t even need to log in to reply… Answer is directly sent to the recipient’s email.

  25. David Litsky

    December 6th, 2007 at 5:48 am

    SMS updates FTW

  26. NatC

    December 6th, 2007 at 6:14 am

    @outraged same position here: I nearly fell from my chair the day when I realized that I was sending messages through facebook. Oh no. Noone would want this to happen.
    You can store email addresses everywhere, but only facebook owns your facebook connections. It’s a good way for them to prevent you from moving to another social site.

  27. Mark Mayhew

    December 6th, 2007 at 6:21 am

    Has anyone besides me had to deal with FB Customer Support? I found them to be, not even laughable, bots (even though they did restore my account AFTER fuckin’ with ‘em for a week).
    Or does FB have top notch Customer Support, I just happened to run up on them while they were having a bad, uh, week?

  28. Ido

    December 6th, 2007 at 6:51 am

    Did you have to do anything or did it change automatically? I just got a message from Facebook and was compelled to go into the site…

  29. Jason Sadler

    December 6th, 2007 at 6:59 am

    Michael it seems like you have some sort of stranglehold/influence on Facebook.

    Can you please tell them to add (+) T-Mobile to the “Mobile” carriers in account settings. I am not sure if Facebook knows, but T-Mobile is actually a well known cellular provider with real people working there, providing a service to its customers. I know that Catherine Zeta Jones might not be the best spokesperson ever, but those “Lock the Catbox” song-parody commercials were funny.

    Thanks for flexing your muscles.

  30. smash579

    December 6th, 2007 at 7:18 am

    very welcomes changed indeed.

    likely myspaces will live up to its copycat image and follows suit. id never log into that pos site if my friends didnt persist leaving me messages there despite me asking to use other means instead..

  31. Steve Ballmer

    December 6th, 2007 at 7:43 am

    FaceBook and Microsoft respond almost instantaneously to request from our users! You are welcome.

  32. Frugal Goose

    December 6th, 2007 at 7:55 am

    Why is this a big deal? Many websites have been doing this since the 90s…

  33. Jarrod

    December 6th, 2007 at 7:56 am

    I agree…It could be part of facebook moving toward offering webmail.

  34. Paul Stamatiou

    December 6th, 2007 at 9:01 am

    This wouldn’t have been such a big issue if people didn’t use Facebook messaging as another form of communication. If it’s more than hello and I love your work, people need to send a personal email, non-Facebook. Online etiquette is out of whack.

  35. Judy

    December 6th, 2007 at 9:42 am

    Come on, people. If the message is that important, they should be emailing you or *gasp* calling you on the phone instead.

  36. Leah Culver

    December 6th, 2007 at 9:49 am

    Pownce changed this right away (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/01/kevin-v-evan/). Where’s our thank you? ;)

  37. techguy

    December 6th, 2007 at 9:59 am

    Looks like the wall does the same thing. Was the wall doing this before? I don’t think it was, but a message I just got on my wall showed me what the person wrote without having to go to facebook.

  38. Chris

    December 6th, 2007 at 10:10 am

    @ Judy

    You hit the nail on the head.

  39. Mookie

    December 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am

    It is incredible that a 13 person Facebook group could wield so much power to force the Facebook monster to change their policy. Power to the people!

    http://stanford.facebook.com/g.....6489111385

  40. Trigeia

    December 6th, 2007 at 11:33 am

    This is amazing to me that this FACE BOOK that has hundreds of millions of dollars has barley created and made this function available. http://www.trigeia.com will be launching soon. and we created that function about 3 months ago. Iam not that worried about the page views that you will miss out on…. The more you develop the more revenue that you will build from other sources the secret is making your users happy and creating longevity.

    After reading this blog i am excited to know that even though we have not launched yet and we will be barley beginning that we are not that far away from the giants.

    You can rest assured that Trigeia will not be nice about going about world domination either =)

    Twin

    http://www.trigeia.com
    Launching before Jan. 1st 2008

  41. Roj Niyogi

    December 6th, 2007 at 11:36 am

    Now we just need the capability to forward messages within Facebook. :-)

  42. Anonymous

    December 6th, 2007 at 12:23 pm

    So exactly why should Facebook deserve such appreciation and thanks? They changed their notification emails to include notifications. Why would you get notification emails if not to get notifications?

    Have we all just set our expectations so low that it’s a miracle when a company doesn’t manipulate and exploit us just to get another page view and make another fraction of a cent from an add we’re not going to click or even register our attention?

  43. NHKC

    December 6th, 2007 at 12:56 pm

    Small change? yes.

    (Nice to have? why not)

    Big impact?? give me a break…

    …anyone who emails you on Facebook and not otherwise would fall into that “category” somewhere between spam and African lottery emails anyway…

  44. Jonas

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    Michael, I dont get it. If someone wants to send you a message, why dont they email you directly? Why to use facebook at first place?

  45. Arin

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    I suggested POP & outbound email capabilities to Jonathan Abrams years ago. ya know, back when people actually used Friendster… he thought I was insane.

  46. Joey

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    they just destroyed my business. DAMN!!!!

  47. some guy

    December 6th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

    While it’s a step forward for usability, you can see that it’s a step backward for Facebook. For them, the great thing about not showing messages is forcing you to log in and see their ads and all your other stuff. Now though, you don’t have to log in at all, and won’t see any of it.

  48. Faramarz

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    ^Same guy - You’re wrong, in that, those who were frustrated by this inability will value this effort by facebook’s. it’s almost an attempt at permission marketing coined by Seth Godin. Give your users what they want and in return they will give their loyalty.

  49. StephTheGeek

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    THANK YOU! This is one of the things that always drives me batty about social networking sites.

  50. Project

    December 6th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    People are just totally not getting it.

    Facebook has replaced email for many users. Kids do not email each other these days. They send messages or wall posts on Facebook.

    The cool thing about this is that my Facebook Inbox is whitelisted with my friends and nobody else. Its better than email for anti spam measures.

    Secondly, my email address may change (be it work or personal), but my FB page is not going to. So as long as I keep my email account up to date on Facebook, I will receive friends messages even if they do not know the email address (and this is quite frequent)

  51. xxdesmus

    December 6th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

    This has annoyed me since Facebook’s inception. This is great news, but to be totally honest I am slowly learning to despise Facebook.

  52. social media expert

    December 6th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

    Quiet a big impact indeed. Seems facebook is realizing that people’s user experience is more important than monetizing the traffic in the long run. As Scottkarp of publishing2.0 rightly said “The next great internet company will not be one that makes a breakthrough with technology — it will be one that makes a breakthrough with people.”

  53. 1999 Deja Ju

    December 6th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

    Facebook will be the next BlueMountain. http://smartstartup.typepad.co.....u-all.html

  54. Mark

    December 7th, 2007 at 2:24 am

    Very smart move really. As they’ve made a right hash of their beacon stuff lately, this is a lovely new avenue for contextual placement of Ads. Fmail? lol.

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    December 11th, 2007 at 2:18 am

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  56. mehmet poyraz

    December 15th, 2007 at 3:00 pm

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