Facebook Will Let People You Don't Know Message Your Inbox For $1
 

Speechless.....


http://mashable.com/2012/12/20/faceb...-for-messages/

If you start noticing a few more messages in your Facebook inbox in the coming weeks from people you don't know, here's why.

Facebook announced Thursday that it is testing a new option to charge users a one-time fee of $1 to send a message to another user's inbox on the network who they aren't friends with.

Currently, if you send a Facebook message to someone you're not connected to, it may end up in the Other tab, an oft-overlooked subsection of the inbox that basically serves as a spam folder, depending on whether you have mutual connections. With the new option, however, you would be able to pay a premium to ensure that the message ends up in the main inbox where it's likely to be seen by the recipient.

A Facebook rep told Mashable that users will have the option to mark the incoming message as spam and move it to the Other tab, which means the sender will be unable to reach their inbox afterwards. However, if the recipient doesn't take any action, the sender will be able to continue messaging that user's inbox an unlimited number of times after paying the one-time fee.

"Today we’re starting a small experiment to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance," Facebook said in a blog post. "This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the Inbox rather than the Other folder of a recipient that they are not connected with."

Facebook is billing the change as an attempt to crack down on spam by seeing if "imposing a financial cost on the sender" serves as a deterrent to sending unwanted messages. Yet, it seems just as likely that it could lead to an increase spam, as anyone from a marketer to your ex-girlfriend could potentially use the option to flood your inbox with unwanted messages.

For Facebook, the move appears to be a thinly veiled attempt at testing out a potential new revenue source. LinkedIn offers a similar option, which lets users with premium accounts message those outside their network. Facebook has tried to monetize anything and everything on the site, recently announcing an option for average users to pay $7 to promote a post on the social network so that more people see it.

The new pay-to-message option was announced as part of a larger set of changes to Facebook Messages, including new filtering options to determine whether you mostly see messages from friends or from friends and related contacts you may know.

I get the sense that Facebook's bubble is bursting. They seem to be fumbling around trying to find some way, any way, to monetize effectively.

**** this. I'm getting fairly sick of Facebook anyway - I've found all the old friends I lost contact with that are worth finding, and almost never interact with them anyway. The only person I chat with regularly is a friend who lives overseas.

Let them spend their money. It's just getting ****ing deleted anyways.

LOL Yep

I 'disabled' my facebook a while back. I think it's bullshit it has to be there permanently, makes me angry.

RIP Facebook

i think its bullshit potential employers have access to everything you've posted, ever... i'm going to have to delete a bunch of my rant posts cause it makes me look bad.

If someone wants to pay $1 to message me, I may acutally feel sorry enough for them to answer. Unless it costs me a dollah back, in that case they can just suck it.

Yep.

And several of their key partners are in big financial trouble - see Zynga.

I assume I've already received 2. I'm starting to think foreign whores will do anything for a roof over their head.


I had no idea the "other" tab existed. I've missed out on millions of dollars twice now. :banghead:

This blew up on twitter awhile back. I haven't been following the value of the shares to see what's going on, but it does seem like they are struggling to find the next move.

No clue how much of it was from his real account, but it looked like "Myspace Tom" passed around several 580 million dollar pimp slaps to people who were slamming on the various social network sites and their creators being dumb.

Only if you have your profile set son anyone can see it. Only friends are set up to see mine. Not even friends of friends.

Twitter is better

Facebook isn't going anywhere until someone creates a viable alternative.. and currently there isn't anything even close which is why they can get away with ridiculously stupid moves like this.