Sneak peek: New-style Facebook messages on iPhone

Facebook’s new-style messages service — an abstraction of email, IM, and SMS — is already working in the latest version of Facebook for iPhone… once you’ve had the feature rolled out to your account. Facebook isn’t the first to try and redefine the ways we communicate online. Google has done it twice already, once successfully with the eccentric but reserved Gmail and again unsuccessfully with the wikichat that was Wave. Facebook is a social network however — the social network — so their take is decidedly different and whether or not it catches on remains to be seen.

Setup is simple on the web. You get an invitation, you accept, then you get your @facebook email address, verify your SMS number (if you want), and login to chat (also if you want). After that you’re hit with the new interface. Once that’s setup, the next time you launch Facebook on iPhone you’re alerted that new-style messages are available (same way Places alerted you when it arrived) and you’re good to go.

We’ll be testing it out over the next week or so but in the meantime check out the screenshots after the break and if you have any questions or comments, you know where to leave them!

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Beginner tip: How to make text messages more private

Wondering how to protect your privacy and stop iPhone SMS popups from revealing the contents of your text message? It’s not set that way by default, which is pretty annoying, but it can be changed. We’ll show you how, after the break!

Special thanks to Freiteez from the forums for this tip!

Here’s how to make your iPhone text messages more discreet:

From the home screen, tap on the Settings appTap on MessagesFind where it says “show preview”Switch to off.

Now when you get a text message, instead of showing the actual contents of the message, it will only say “text message”. (Note: the name of the sender will still be displayed.)

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Note: Comments must be civil, respectful, and on-topic. If a comment does not add to the conversation, if it contains spam advertising, or inappropriate language or content, it will be removed. Comments containing links may be held for moderation. Relax, enjoy, and share in the discussion.

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New Facebook Messages isn’t an email killer, but will you use it?

Facebook held a press conference earlier today to announce their new messaging system. Many believed this would be an email killer to compete with the likes of Gmail and Yahoo! Instead, Facebook is launching a revamped messaging system that unifies all communication through email, IM or SMS into an aggregated messaging stream. “It’s not e-mail” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the press event this morning.

The new messaging system is composed of three parts: seamless messaging, cross-platform conversation history and the social inbox. The latter is an inbox for filtering the messages you want, organized by the people you care about. It’s designed to highlight conversations with your real friends and be spam free.

Facebook will also be assigning individual email addresses under the facebook.com email domain which correlates to the Facebook username in question. The new messaging system will be rolling out to select users over the next couple of months.

What we’re curious about is if the update to Facebook Mobile for iPhone late last night had anything to do with the announcement this morning, or will we be getting yet another update shortly to enable it? And most importantly, will you be using it?

[Facebook via Mashable]

Note: Comments must be civil, respectful, and on-topic. If a comment does not add to the conversation, if it contains spam advertising, or inappropriate language or content, it will be removed. Comments containing links may be held for moderation. Relax, enjoy, and share in the discussion.

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