But, realistically I don't think that email is going away for a while because its entrenched into people's habits and it provides control.
If you were to use fb's system to replace your email then you'd effectively relinquish your control over your data to fb (again).
Notedly, I want to disclaim that fb is POS. lol. I truly hate fb because of its practices and that its essentially a giant time sink without purpose. I registered my name and deactivated my account just so that no one else would use my name but I don't use it.
I don't think that email is going away for a while because its entrenched into people's habits and it provides control.
E-mail is one of the greatest technological innovations of all time--can you think of another gadget used by a six-year old, a 106-year old, and everyone in between? Even the web doesn't quite qualify. The snail mail metaphor works, and people like it. As Wave demonstrated, the 99% of non-edge cases (none of whom work at Google) are not pining for increased levels of interaction, organization or complication when it comes to messaging. Mark Zuckerberg's criticism of e-mail, that it is too formal (or whatever), sounds like a guy with a hammer in search of a nail.
But then again, what do I know? As a non-Facebook user, I'm not exactly in the majority, and FB has proved me wrong on these issues time and again :-)
For many under the age of 20, email has already gone away. They think of it like we think of our (physical) mailbox. It's slow, it's filled with junk, it's something you check once per day but it's not where the bulk of daily activity happens. And it's quaint when grandma sends you one there.
Email will stay like the physical mailbox will stay. (Much more important for business than pleasure.)
Seems like it's a system for your friends. Their focus isn't for things like your bank account or anything else. It's very similar to email, but due to their knowledge of your friends they can simplify the white/black lists and prioritize communications.
My understanding is that Email is being replaced for many (younger peeps) by SMS, IM and Facebook messaging already. Its funny when I look at it I actually rarely send notes to friends with my personal email anymore. Email has become my professional way to communicate but with Friends and Family its fading away. It looks like Facebook is trying to capitalize on this trend by adding an overlay on top of all those services.
I have to say this is really in some ways more interesting then an Fmail announcment.
Some of important things that go through my email In box are my order statuses from online stores, bill reminders/confirmations, password reset emails from website.. It's seems so hard to avoid email unless you don't do any of those things.
It doesn't seem to be really merging communications, but trying to separate it out between friends and other. It seems dangerous that any important emails go to your fb account since it might get dumped into the 'other' folder and possibly not get looked at for along time or never. People won't be getting rid of their other (work/personal) accounts, so fb is really just another account that they'll have to check.
I'm guessing this will be something where you select a person you know, and up pops a list of all of the interactions you've had with them in one stream.
Seems like it might work, if it's seamless enough. Saying it's "email" or an "email killer" is being short-sighted -- it's giving you a stream for an individual.
It seems that Facebook's system has some of the same elements/ideas as Wave, but I wouldn't say it fills the same space as wave.
This makes a lot of sense.....
I feel that there has been some space for a MSN replacement for a while. Microsof lack of innovation of MSN is a sign. (Wave tried to get it but failed though)