Facebook says new messaging service will make email addresses obsolete

Facebook has predicted that its new messaging service will make phone numbers and email addresses obsolete.

In a posting on the Facebook blog after the launch of the social network’s new messaging service, Joel Seligstein, a engineer at the company, said: "Relatively soon, we'll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other.

"We will just select friends by name and be able to share with them instantly. We aren't there yet, but the changes today are a small first step.

At the launch of Facebook's new messaging service earlier Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive, called email "too slow and formal".

Speaking at an event in San Francisco, ahead of this year’s Web 2.0 Summit, Zuckeberg showcased the ‘next generation messaging system’, which will allow users to have an @facebook.com email address.

He said: “Email is too slow… email is too formal. There is too much friction, like the filling in the subject line…. when people send an email.”

Zuckerberg stressed that the new system, which will combine Facebook’s instant messaging system, SMS, Facebook messages and email in one place, would allow people to reply seamlessly across multiple devices to different types of messages.

For instance, when somebody emails a Facebook friend using their Facebook email account, that person can reply in the same window using either the system’s instant messaging system, or by email, or by SMS. The aim is to combine all types of messaging in one place, allowing people to reply in real-time.

Zuckerberg emphasised that email would only be a part of the new messaging system. The three key aspects the new system would be seamless messaging allowing people to communicate in several formats, across multiple devices. Secondly the new messaging system will store all conversation history in once screen shot, regardless of whether it was email or IM.

And thirdly the new system works on the premise of the ‘social inbox’. Zuckerberg explained that the system would work better than other email spam detectors and will prioritise key contacts’ messages. “You will only be able to see messages that really matter to you,” he said.

The new messaging system is only live to those with an invite at this stage. Zuckerberg said that it will be rolled out slowly across the next several months.

He also revealed he had ambitions for the system to be able to sync with other email accounts in the future.

Zuckerberg said that his team had been working on the new system for over a year and that 350 million people regularly use Facebook current messaging system.  Will email become obsolete people??