SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook is betting that one day soon, we'll all be acting like high school students - more texting and instant-messaging, at the expense of e-mail.
Facebook unveiled a new messaging system Monday, and while CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't go as far as declaring e-mail dead, he clearly sees the four-decade-old technology being eclipsed by more real-time ways of communicating.
"We don't think a modern messaging system is going to be e-mail," Zuckerberg said.
Right now, Facebook's Messages section is a lot like an e-mail inbox.
The overhauled version, which will be rolled out to users by invitation in coming months, brings in cell-phone texts, IM chats and e-mails from non-Facebook accounts.
For those who want one, Facebook will hand out facebook.com e-mail addresses - mostly to make it easier to communicate with people who aren't on Facebook.
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"If we do a good job, some people will say this is the way that the future will work," Zuckerberg said.
By making e-mail part of its communications hub, Facebook escalates its duel with Internet search leader Google Inc., which shook up online communications 6 1/2 years ago with its Gmail service.
Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft are also working on incorporating messages from Facebook, Twitter and other social sites into their main e-mail systems.
What Facebook has that Gmail and others don't have, however, is people's real identities, plus a map of their real-life relationships and online interactions - something Facebook likes to refer to as the "social graph."
Facebook will use what it knows of these relationships to build a social inbox that not only filters out spam but messages it deems less important from strangers or overly chatty friends, and impersonal messages such as the phone bill.
At a glance
THE NEW TOOL - Right now, Facebook's Messages section is a lot like an e-mail inbox. The overhauled version brings in cell-phone texts, IM chats and e-mails from non-Facebook accounts, too.
ORGANIZATION - Messages stack up in one inbox, organized by the person sending them rather than the type of technology they use.
THE FUTURE - Facebook's CEO didn't go as far as declaring e-mail dead, but he clearly sees the four-decade-old technology being eclipsed by more real-time ways of communicating.
