Facebook Messages: Taking Control of the Conversation

On Monday, Facebook finally revealed it's long awaited messaging system to the world. And though not quite the "email killer" many prognosticated, Facebook Messages is being heralded as a game changer as it maneuvers to dominate the world of online, electronic communications. The question is this: Are you ready to hand over all your digital conversations (and maybe huge amounts of privacy) to Facebook? 

 Facebook Messages is a hybrid messaging platform. Not exactly email, not exactly IM, and not exactly SMS. What it does offer is a way to communicate with friends regardless of what system they use.

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls "social messaging." That is, Facebook Messages allows for cross-platform messaging integration.  So, if you receive a text in Facebook Messages, you could reply with email. If they email, you could respond with an IM. As their marketing message says, they think sharing should be easier than it is today. 

Facebook Messages organizes conversations according to the person, not the subject line. In this way, you can see your entire conversation history with one person—emails, IMs, and SMSs—all in one place. Plus, coming soon, the ability to aggregate voice chat . 

Finally, there is something called the social inbox. This only allows messages from your friends and their friends (the default setting). Gone are messages from dethroned Nigerian royalty looking to get money out of their countries and herbal Viagra ads from Canadian pharmacies. Unless, of course, those ARE your friends.

Now, here are my concerns.

First and foremost is privacy. In the video below (at about the 3:02 mark), there is a line where our narrator says, "When we looked at the subject lines for Facebook messages..." Wait! What? There was something odd about this line. I know it is probably innocuous, but it got me thinking about Facebook mining my emails for information. Using email though Facebook gives the site even more information about you and your online activites. Then again, Google already does this. Just look at the little ads that pop up all over your gmail account. Of course it begs the question, what will Facebook do when its monitoring all my digital communications?

And talking about subject lines, I actually find that they are a useful way to organize my conversations, especially when the conversation or thread is among three or more people.  For example, each year I go on a hike with friends. There are five of us who shoot emails back and forth regarding different aspects of the hike. How would these be arranged? By person? In which case, it would be difficult to follow the actual conversation. 

They say it will prevent SPAM. Yet, they also say that by default, the only messages I'll see will be from my friends and their friends. This mean that a friend of a friend, someone I might not know, can send me an email? Why not just make it only friends by default?

Lastly, and this may go back to the privacy issue, the idea of all my digital conversations being in a giant vault "protected" by Facebook gives me the willies. They talk about how grandma saved all her correspondents from grandpa in box. It's a quaint notion, but it doesn't really translate. Grandma kept those letters in a closet or under her bed, and they were private. Can the same be said for Facebook Messages? Do you think those letters in a box would seem as nice if the box was kept by someone else who used them for demographic information?

And let's not even start with the security issues raised by the likes of Firesheep and the infamous blackhats of the world. 

The bottom line is this: Facebook seems to want to control, or at least have their hand in, all your digital conversations. But is that just too much control for one company? What are your thoughts?

Kevin Duffy is the Creative Director for The Duffy Agency's Boston Office. 

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