As expected, Facebook today unveiled its new communications platform which includes an email system that allows users to have email addresses with a facebook.com suffix. But the revamped messaging
service goes beyond adding email to allow users to integrate all online communication seamlessly in one place. Besides combining email, SMS, IM and other messaging from different channels, the new
platform will feature a history of a users's online communications and a social inbox designed to automatically prioritize messages that come from Facebook friends.
"This is a messaging
service that includes email as one part of it," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, noting that press speculation leading up to the announcement focused on Facebook introducing an email service. He
also said 350 million people today are using Facebook's current message system to send 4 billion messages a day--a figure growing faster than the number of new members joining the social network. Read
more here.