back to article Facebook unveils 'next-gen' messaging system

Facebook has unveiled a "next-generation" messaging system for its social networking–obsessed users. After speaking with some high schoolers during a Thanksgiving trip a couple of years ago — who told him that they rarely used email because it was "too slow" — Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg decided his social networking cum …

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  1. Anonymous Bastard
    FAIL

    Facebook unveils 'next-gen' messaging system

    And it shall be called "Facebook Wave". And it too shall flop.

    1. Code Monkey

      Not the same

      Google Wave (Gwave?) tried to co-opt the Gmail userbase into a new product. This is a new feature in an already popular product.

      Me? I'll use it if it's good, wish I could block it if not.

      1. Jerome 0

        Facebook Wave?

        Both these services attempt to "span email as well as IM, text messages", so from this initial description, they do indeed sound identical.

        The difference is that Google Wave offered a genuinely new and useful method of communicating, which flopped because it proved too difficult for the masses to understand.

        I expect that Facebook Wave will dumb things down to near-uselessness, but the Farmville crowd will love it, and it will be a huge success.

  2. ElNumbre
    Badgers

    Say Hello Mr Chips... He's Waving!!!

    Sounds like Google Wave with an email address to me.

    1. gav_taylor

      errm...

      google wave also came with an email address? xxx@googlewave.com

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Deja vu

    Anyone else reminded of Google's Wave announcement?

  4. Chris 3

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

    ...Facebook Wave!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    not a wave reference

    don't trust zurk and prefer writing my secrets in the sand, near the water line - social networks are evil.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Hivemind

    What the Wave... This will indeed be a Google killer app. Google will die of laughing.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Register Commenters Unanimous!

    Surely this must be a first?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Oh, right.

    Er OK.

  9. vhatcher
    FAIL

    Thanks for the laugh

    CUM? Don't you mean COME?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      You're the real fail.

      You've seriously never heard that term before? Congrats on being an immature child.

      cum [kʌm]

      prep

      used between two nouns to designate an object of a combined nature a kitchen-cum-dining room

      [Latin: with, together with, along with]

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      You're the real fail.

      "CUM? Don't you mean COME?" Uh, no, he didn't. Try reading a book sometime.

      cum [kʌm]

      prep

      used between two nouns to designate an object of a combined nature a kitchen-cum-dining room

      [Latin: with, together with, along with]

      1. Pete 8
        Headmaster

        Pedant Spray

        now available only $5.95 plus rough handling charges.

    3. Matt_W
      FAIL

      Pedantic? Good effort, must try harder.

      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cum - first reference

    4. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      No.

      Your choice of reading matter betrays your illiteracy, vhatcher.

    5. LinkOfHyrule
      Paris Hilton

      Woah!

      Ease off the cum slinging people!

  10. dervheid
    Badgers

    Just one small thing, Mr Zuckerberg...

    Anyone with sense will NOT want to put "all of their eggs in the same basket" as it were. Well, I certainly won't. I like having it all separated, thank you.

    I was going to call it a fail, but it's way more like badgers...

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Anyone with sense . . .

      Sorry, but we're talking Facebook here. Sense stays far away from that place.

      1. Elmer Phud

        Sense?

        Nah, anyone with sense has a Facebok account but doesn't put all thier personal details in thier profile. Nor do they open up thier entire profile for all to see. They don't use thier main email address to register and don't import thier address books from elsewhere.

        And they use Firefox with Adblock

        It's not what Facebook wants but sod 'em it's a handy site to use at times. It pretty much killed off Fiends Reunited - not a bad thing.

        1. dervheid

          Yup

          Pretty much dead there...

  11. jake Silver badge

    Great.

    Facebook's invented Usenet.

    1. Code Monkey

      Usenet

      Reinventring Usenet worked for LiveJournal, until Facebook came along.

  12. Mortal Skeptic

    Text Messages

    "It spans email as well as IM, text messages, and on-Facebook messages"

    Looks like Facebook has come up with a new way to get unsuspecting people to give up more information about themselves. By capturing text messages facebook will now have a monopoly for owning all the information relating to drunk peoples shenanigans.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Drunk texts

      http://www.textsfromlastnight.com has those covered

  13. Ef'd

    Good for them

    I've thought for sometime that texting and email should converge, seeing as how the only apparent difference to the common user is the endpoint. Might as well throw chat/tweeting into that mix.

    I'm as cautious about vertical integration as the next person here, but the idea won't be tied to facebook for long.

  14. Joshua Goodall

    Just another crappy php website

    That's all Facebook is and will ever be. A big crappy php website perhaps, but a crappy php website nonetheless. So this is a big crappy webmail with chat? Woohoo, no-one ever did that before.

    Target market: American teenagers.

    Email killer it is not

  15. JDX Gold badge

    hmm

    gmail itself already integrates chat & email into conversation history. Otherwise it sounds like wave... but wave with a half-billion potential users who like that kind of stuff.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Job application filter

    Thanks Zuckerberg!

    Now when cruising through CV/resumes, as well as being able to filter out old and useless people by their use of @aol.com for their their email, we'll now be able to filter out young and useless people (and obviously narcissists and low self esteem too) by their use of @facebook.com

    Sweet.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      @AC 15/11 - 21:35

      No wonder you posted this drivel anonymously

      Filtering people because of their email address and age? Are you 12 or 13?

      If you want to filter retards out, I'd look for the use of the word "sweet" as a signoff to start. I've not heard that term used for a long time.

      Are you a mullet-munger?

      1. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

        Re: @AC 15/11 - 21:35

        I say 'sweet' all the time. I just have little cause to say it around here.

  17. Marc 1

    So....

    How do we disable it?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      title

      Are you new to Facebook? You do it in privacy settings... once a month after they keep re-enabling it.

      Alternatively, you do as those of us who are sensible and forced into using Facebook since our friends are too retarded to handle an e-mail account, and don't let it access anything of any value in the first place.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        title..

        You're forgetting the really annoying bit where you're best mates 6 year old gets hold of his mobile and decides copying it all onto facebook is a great idea because everyone will need that won't they...

        then its infuriating because you know that information is never really going to dissapear.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    err..

    The system is not an email service. It spans email as well as IM, text messages, and on-Facebook messages.

    That'd be my blackberry inbox then.

  19. NemoWho
    Thumb Down

    What Exciting News...

    ...be sure to wake me when the "Next Generation" arrives. (Or was Zuckerberg supposed to be it?) Either way, here's to spending your Thanksgiving holiday with email-complaining teenagers - - way to zero in on one's key demographic, I suppose.

  20. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Great idea...

    ...for yet another wave of security and privacy failures.

    I'm gonna grab me some popcorn and watch the fallout. Bound to be fun !

  21. Mark 65

    Fail

    "The idea was that we would take conversation across all different mediums and weave them together,"

    Then sell it all to the highest bidder.

    1. BorkedAgain
      Badgers

      Deadzone Crosstalk

      Reckon he meant "media"? Or are they consolidating communication from the other side?

      Spooky...

      1. Mark 65

        @BorkedAgain

        You mean they've made a Doris Stokes app?

  22. squilookle

    It sounds like Google Wave

    but the strength of sending messages on Facebook as things stand is the ease of picking names from the address book, combined with the fact that nearly everyone you know is there (that is the case for me anyway).

    I think it stands a better chance gthan Wave, but I suppose we'll see.

  23. Terry Kiely
    Pint

    confused.com

    In a mellow moment, I see lots of paranoia here!

    lots of people want to stop/choke/kill/mock this

    I for one, welcome what the new uber geek on the block has to offer. This is what we are all supposed to be about! open to new ideas and concepts, give it a go eh? if it's no good it WILL FAIL and in a big way. If not, then we will embarce it and wonder how we did without it just like the 'Fondle slab' et al.

    I am not a fan of faceflash and others but it occurs to me that people want openess on the net but also want to hide, a bit duplicitous if you ask me.

    What I am trying to say is that I am interested to see what's on offer. I admin a lot of business folk and am intrigued as to the implications here. Remember, it works two ways! you might not want to work for the 'respectable' CEO who has certain kinds of parties every weekend :)

    openness, not just open source

    <comment/>

    <Beer> as it's late and I realise that I am disadvantaged at this time of night and a future emplyer/controct giver might fund up the trith>

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Let's hope it succeeds

    Then all the spammers will target the facebook dorks, and leave the rest of us to use our email in peace.

  25. FozzyBear
    IT Angle

    FacePlant!

    Re-badge old crap and throw it out to the mindless masses that inhabit facebook

    Usenet, Wav, hell even a good mobile phone will do this for you. so i have every reason to ask Mark Zuckerberg

    Where’s the innovative IT angle… BITCH?

  26. asdf
    Joke

    its not wave bitch

    I'm the back stabbing ip stealing Harvard social climbing CEO, bitch (or is it bitch CEO?) and this ain't nothing like wave. Its cooler and will make me more cash. (Sorry just disappointed control f returned no bitch results on this page lol so couldn't resist).

  27. Bad Beaver
    Thumb Down

    Great

    Even more opportunity for the tards that can't be assed to check or reply to their E-Mail on a regular basis. "Why don't you send me a message on FB?!" - Barf. Some of these people have a Blackberry and still won't reply. I especially love academics who solely rely on a webmailer and then complain about the inconvenience of E-Mail. At least with this "invention" you'll be able to reach them without having to log into freakbook. Regardless, thumbs down. DOWN!

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh bugger

    How will I communicate with people? I suppose I'll have to get a facebook account.

  29. Tom Chiverton 1

    Pics or it didn't happen

    So, this is just fluff then ? Nothing to see here, move along ?

  30. Otto von Humpenstumpf

    I'm not...

    ...as negative about this as most commentards; I think there's some merit in the idea to join social (as in 'friends', as opposed to 'professional') email, SMS and chat in a single interface, especially since every smartphone on the planet offers FB access.

    The biggest issue such a feature faces is that it's potentially going to be a spam magnet of epic proportions. Every spammer on the planet is going to chuck spam at every possible combination of <firstname>.<lastname>@facebook.com.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  31. Tigra 07
    Terminator

    This can't be good...

    Google Warning for exporting info to FB:

    "Hold on a second. Are you super sure you want to import your contact information for your friends into a service that won’t let you get it out? "

    Facebook Wave Warning: "Hurry and export all your data to us so we can protect it from being stolen or sold. Creating a Facebook Email account is a legal admission that you are handing us your data to look after. Opting out from the Facebook Email program is also an admission that you want us to hold your data, as is starting a lawsuit, dying, or any other circumstance. Thank you for using Facebook Wave"

  32. Tom Chiverton 1
    FAIL

    Wow

    According to http://www.facebook.com/help/?topic=new_messages#!/help/?faq=19031 it's going to be trivial for spammers to guess en-mass email address'.

  33. Barry Tabrah
    Stop

    double take

    "It spans email as well as IM, text messages, and on-Facebook messages"

    I misread spans as spams. A simple mistake or a portent of things to come?

  34. Tigra 07
    Flame

    This will only end badly...

    Nothing better than getting round to reading a personal email from the bank and seeing that 300 people have already read it and "liked" it.

    That won't be a problem with Facebook intercepting your post will it?

  35. Andy Farley
    Go

    I'd love this to work and all personal communication to go through it.

    Which would mean my firewall increases company productivity be several orders of magnitude.

  36. BorkedAgain
    Badgers

    It's like wave, but...

    ...with a built-in set of ready-connected people, none of whom will need to wait months for an invitation to join in. So it might actually work this time.

    If it actually IS wave (as in an implementation of the protocol underlying Google Wave) then there may be a chance that this would be the event that allowed the Wave protocol to reach critical mass and actually take off. Phoenix-style, in this case. Wouldn't that be nice?

    Not sure I'd sign up for FaceWave though. They can Zuck my Berg...

  37. Rajiv Dhir
    Jobs Horns

    This is what I use my Palm Pre for

    And it works because on a smartphone, you have access to all the channels and its immediate. Nobody's friends are exclusively on one channel, nor do I use use a consistent channel for with each friend. I have one with a blackberry who replies to emails with texts (go figure), she does it to avoid the danger of reply all.

    So when this service is available on a smartphone or it can incorporate a lot of channels its might be worth worrying about.

  38. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Stop

    FB, I've upped my security, now up yours!

    Knowing that FB trade all manner of personal info to the ad scumbags and FB's grip on security is tenuous to say the least, there is no way I would trust them to handle email!

  39. This post has been deleted by its author

  40. Stuart Jones

    Lars Rasmussen - the Google Wave developer was allegedly defecting to Facebook

    According to this:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/31/rasmussen_leaves_google_for_facebook/

    Lars Rasmussen - the Google Wave developer was allegedly defecting to Facebook

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Everyone's happy!

    For FB users, some useful additional functionility to make use of.

    For non FB users, something else to moan and bitch about.

    Everyone's happy!

  42. Mark .

    "Integration"

    So does this mean someone using a random email service can message someone at Facebook, and vice versa? And someone can SMS someone at Facebook, and vice versa? If so, great.

    But if this is a walled garden, then there's no integration, it's just Yet Another Messaging Service. With the downside that it's all controlled by one company (unlike email, SMS etc where anyone can use the protocols). If I have to sign up to Facebook to contact someone at Facebook, and still have to use email to talk to someone not on Facebook, where's the integration?

    Now given that they say "This is a messaging system that uses email as one part of it." it suggests the former. But given Facebook's walled garden approach, I'm sceptical...

    Regarding privacy - yes, I would be concerned over Facebook's habit of making data public even when you'd previously specified it to be restricted.

  43. Michael C

    So what you're saying is...

    ...the system I use for personal, private, point to point communication to avoid having data i don't want on Facebook end up on Facebook is now integrated into Facebook? More, people I don;t share some of those things with, but yet that I am friends with, may have access to those other addresses now too?

    [[[Seeking Opt-Out Link Now]]]

    The ONLY reasons I have a Facebook account are so that the wife and her friends have another neighbor in those damned flash games, and so people i have not talked to in 10 years have SOME way to find me that does not involve me sharing or publishing accounts I actually care to protect. I check the feed on my phone periodically, just to chuckle, usually at how stupid some people are to be posting publicly what they do, and if i post a reply once a week its rare.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh how they all mock....

    it makes me laugh when the self appointed elitists all mock the facebook generation

    yeah, facebook has a lot of shite, all block able, but at the end of the day facebook is a bit of a (enter deity of choice here)-send for me..

    In the past, the amount of times I have had to sort out email accounts for family, complain at them for sending me e-cards via email from dumbass companies that then spam me to death... re-setting accounts because they lost the password, making new accounts because of all the spam they get...

    these days because facebook is so simple for them to use and understand it has given me plenty of free time to get on with what i want to do... i don’t get phone calls to talk them through attaching a photo to an email.... they don’t send me emails riddled with virus....

    for all you self appointed elitists... learn to embrace the facebook generation.. They are not your enemy...they, in a lot of cases, are your family…

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