What Facebook Mail will mean for marketing
Written by Bruce Townsend
Monday, 22 November 2010 00:00
Facebook’s rolling release of its new integrated email and messaging system has caused a bit of a stir in the ether this week. But is it as innovative as it seems? And is it an opportunity for business?
To access the new functionality, you first have to request an invitation at http://www.facebook.com/about/messages. Once your turn comes around, you will get an invitation on your Facebook screen to upgrade to ‘New Messages’. This in turn will give you an email address @facebook.com. But there the similarity to conventional email ends.
Once you have upgraded, you will see both email and chat merged into a single view. You will be able to view message exchanges as conversations, and add new people to an existing conversation. Critics have pointed out that this seems remarkably similar to Google Wave, which died a natural death earlier this year after failing to set the world alight.
It might seem strange for Facebook to try something that so recently failed for Google. But Facebook’s social element does add a different dimension to the proposition. And Facebook also offers the ability to include SMS messages in the stream.
Eventually ‘New Messages’ will undoubtedly become a standard feature. But it remains to be seen whether users in large numbers will use the new functionality. And from a marketing perspective, the volume of users will be critical.
Facebook email will obey the same privacy settings as the current Messages. This means that users can choose to share their message stream with their friends – potentially drawing messages to the attention of many more people. On the other hand, they can also choose only to accept emails from Friends, or Friends of Friends, potentially limiting its usefulness for marketing.
The extent to which marketers use and abuse the system may well influence their privacy choices, and that’s probably the biggest fly in the ointment. Some Facebook users may initially experiment with fairly open settings, creating a marketing opportunity for businesses that get in early. But once the spammers get a hold, people will batten down the hatches and tighten up their privacy, and the opportunity will be gone for good.
By Bruce Townsend, ecommerce product manager and SEO specialist at Actinic. Originally published on UtalkMarketing.com.
