There is one glaring issue with the new Facebook email – spam.  There is no spam folder, only an “other” folder. Though we might tend to think this is the same thing, it isn’t. The “other” folder is really meant to filter emails that do not belong in your preferred email box, like bills, newsletters, and annoying friends who only send you forwards with inspirational quotes, etc.  The preferred box is supposed to be for people you really want to hear from. However the opposite of preferred is not spam.

The first part of your email address is your vanity URL.  So if you are www.facebook.com/lauren.macewen  then lauren.macewen@facebook.com will be your email address. These URL’s are crawlable by spam bots which means that any spam bot will easily be able to figure out your email address.

Any spam emails will automatically be put into the “other” box. So, now are you at risk of missing those emails that aren’t spam but aren’t preferred?

One of the biggest reasons Facebook decided to launch an email system (aka Not-Mail) is that more than 4 billion emails are sent through Facebook every day. Mark Zuckerberg feels that they traditional system of email is anachronistic. On this issue he might be right.  People are increasingly use mail rooted in their social network, ie. Facebook Messages, Twitter DM, Linkedin In Mail, text messages, mentions, wall postings are increasingly becoming primary sources for communication. Traditional email is becoming the way of the past. People are wanting their communications to be linked to one another and with higher functionality than type, send and read.  People are moving towards a complete integration of their communication technology.  This is why my calendar is linked to my other calendar which is linked to my Tungle.me which sends me emails that I get on both my computers and my phone. Though this seems complicated, when one is updated it is all updated. Ultimately this makes things easier because everything is interconnected and it doesn’t matter where or how I access it. Facebook is trying to do this without having 10 different applications and sites necessary to accomplish a high level of inter-connectivity.

There are a lot of questions about how the basic email function is going to work. Basically the essentials will be just like email. I type in your contact info, my subject and body and then send.  You receive and respond back.  This will not be that different.

The best change that will make conversation tracking much easier is that all your conversations with a person will be kept in a singular history.  Currently the messages in Facebook do this for a singular conversation but does not for all communications between two people.  The change will keep all conversations with one person in a singular history, and will do this for everyone in your contact list. This includes friends not on Facebook.

As Bos, the senior engineer at Facebook, said at the live announcement, he could track his entire relationship with his girlfriend through the email history.

What makes this so different from the standard Facebook messaging, outside of being able to email people who are not on Facebook, is that people can send you an email to an address and have it go to your Facebook message center.  All users will be able to get an username@facebook.com email address. So whatever your name is on Facebook will be your email address, for instance mine would be LaurenMacEwen@facebook.com. This means that people can send you emails to your facebook email from any email client, and you can email them back.

Soon IMAP will also be supported, meaning you will be able to use your new @facebook.com email address on your mail client, taking Facebook mail completely off Facebook.

Read the overview of Facebooks “Not-Mail” messaging system here

Tomorrow I will talk about the cross-platform integration of Facebook messages, SMS, IM, and Facebook Chat.

On Monday Facebook announced their new email solution, also being called “Not-Mail”. This is not a traditional email where write an email and send it, with some spam filtering and maybe some folders for organizing.  As Mark Zuckerberg has said, “this is not email.”  The modern messaging concept is going to involve multiple platform integration, complete conversation history and the incorporation of social mapping for email sorting.

Still wondering what this means.  Here is the break down:

• When you receive an email, it will pop up in a message through Facebook messaging. It will also be in your email box. If you have and iPhone you will get a push notification. If you don’t have an iPhone you will get a text message.Essentially you will be connected as your emails happen. Don’t worry you can control the types of notifications you receive so you don’t feel like your technology just exploded.
• The email will keep all of your communications with a singular user in one stream.  This way you can easily see every email between you and that person since the dawn of time…well, at least since the dawn of Not-Mail.
• Social mapping is something that Facebook already does with the newsfeed.  The social map determines who you interact with the most and who it thinks are the people you are most interested in and then posts their updates on the wall. A social mail box will be the same.  Facebook will use the mapping algorithm to select who it thinks you want to receive email from.  The people not selected by the algorithm will be put in an “other” folder. You can assist the algorithm by adding people to your your “favorites” mail box, or by moving people into the “other” mail box.  The idea is that your friends and family will get priority via the social mapping and your bills will get put into the “other” box for you to look at later.

Over the next few days I will go into more detail about these features.

Facebook is positioning itself to become the center of your online social experience and focusing communication through the site will help accomplish this.

Will you use Not-Mail?