Facebook is the new email
Just every now and then, something comes along that changes things fundamentally. Hyperlinks, Sat Nav, the Ipod etc. Facebook is one of those things. For all it’s annoyances and crapness of design, the critical mass has been reached. Now, for me at least, I’m ready for facebook to replace my email.
This is mainly about spam, but not entirely. Facebook does win because there’s no spam, and as there is a concept of me needing to accept a friend or colleague for them to be able to contact me, that is how it will stay. There is more to it though. Facebook lets you interact with people instead of just replying to them, and that’s really powerful. It can only get better with more development (facebook <> msn mashup anyone?), and even if something not called facebook comes along, for it to work you will have to be able to port your whole social network to it wholesale and at the same time as your friends. Eitherway, the fact is that email is dead, and not a minute too soon for a protocol that was designed when the Internet was a small group of trusted machines directly connected to each other.
So, now I have RSS for all my mailing lists and other updates I’d have got through email, and facebook / MSN for talking to my friends. Can anyone tell me what’s up with that?
