TL;DR version:

Facebook is essentially a trust clique - what should have happened is that all my SMS, email, voice should have been routed through Facebook. That is something I would pay for. Currently what Facebook’s Project Titan is doing, is inserting itself in my SMS, email, chat and is disregarding voice.

No I’m not one of those who claim that they dont/will never use Facebook and so on - but I fail to see the volcanic hype that Facebook’s new messaging platform is getting.

You see there is no longer any distinction between email, chat and SMS for me - oh yes, arguably there is the realtime conversation aspect of chat, but the problem is I’m having too many of them simultaneously. For all intents and purposes, by the time I switch back from that other thread, my email has a reply, or my post has a comment… or my comment has a reply.

Secondly, I no longer use SMS to communicate with my friends anymore. You see, SMS is inherently very spammy - in India atleast, I get atleast 30 SMSes each day for insurance offers, real estate deals, etc. There is an incredibly high chance that I miss out on SMSes, because I dont want to look at them. But my Twitter app on my Android phone notifies me of mentions/replies/DMs. That I do check instantly.

Now facebook itself has an app on Android/iPhone - which isnt built for the same kind of messaging paradigm as my Twitter app (I dont get a notification for updates, etc.), but then again Facebook is a stream of information rather than directed messaging. That is precisely why I want it to consume everything, including my phone calls, etc and not send me status updates on SMS.

Tomorrow if Google Voice (which does consume everything) manages to simply migrate my trust network - hook or crook - why would my life not totally become Google ? It has web, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm, Nokia clients… plus some marginal voicemail features (missed status updates as voicemail?).

Facebook is definitely a step in messaging, but it is definitely a step backward.