Email vs. Facebook
September 2, 2007 - 12:15am — bmann
Not a big thesis on this topic, just an observation that this evening, as I was thinking about organizing something with friends for tomorrow morning, my instinct was to open a tab and go to Facebook to contact them...rather than email.
And of course, this is exactly what ActiveState's Up4 Facebook app is trying to help with as well.
Update: And of course, today I see that Facebook has added straight-to-email messaging -- "No more switching back and forth between email and Facebook. When you are writing a message, simply enter any email addresses into the “To:” field.". There is a longer post on the Facebook blog about this.
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Comments
Platform independent messaging
It would be nice, rather than having all sorts of proprietary messaging schemes, if we had just one unified messaging / email system for the net. Then the only thing that need be mentioned is how the message got to you. e.g. "Via Facebook", or "Via IMAP email". We definitely need the Apple CyberDoc mentality for the Internet, I see to many people reproducing common content over and over, but without any interoperability.
communciations integration
ha - funny how the login downtime allowed me to google and discover your facebook-enabled site...i couldnt be more thankful for the downtime! ;)
anyhoo - im glad to see youre in the same conversations as I - I am totally for a goto place for my communications and never thought 2 yrs ago when i took the jump to gmail that id be wiling to drop it cold turkey just to live this vision in facebook! now what to do with all the people just now getting on the gmail bandwagon *sigh*
I did a quick Google on "Apple Cyberdoc" with no hits - gfair, is this a term you made up? Id like to hear more
For the record with all the wall cousins showing up - it seems like the messaging architecture is fragmented and my only guess (without looking at nuts & bolts) is a wall post doesnt exist as a basic class for other apps to use - i find this very annoying and hope it gets resolved soon (end gripe)
I am curious how your facebook integration works exactly - its not readily apparent at first glance - things Id like to see in the spirit of "one stop" is your profile data here, my profile data here, perhaps entries linked with your Notes, integration with groups, etc. - I dont think I need to say much more!
dont mean to digress and thought Id do what I can to both share my thoughts and fwd the conversation!
OpenDoc and Cyberdog
Actually, Graham meant Cyberdog, which was a browser + more implementation of OpenDoc, a component architecture similar to Microsoft's OLE.
My integration is a small authentication-only app that does nothing more than allow you to login with your Facebook account in a secure way. And not written by me, just an off the shelf Drupal module.
A more advanced integration (coming soon?) would allow this entire site to be added as an app, and you would be able to browse, share, add comments, etc. all from within Facebook...basically just output FBML from within this site when accessed within a Facebook context. Other things like profiles etc. are a bit trickier, but doable. Maybe show the last N people that visited the site/app, like MyBlogLog.