You’ve certainly used the direct messaging service from Facebook before, and coming soon is a relaunch that will make it smarter and more intuitive.  Get ready to experience “the next generation of Messages.”

When it releases, the new version version of Messages will bring together Messages, Facebook Chat, IM clients, SMS, and email.  You will be able to send and receive messages over the computer or a mobile phone.  A conversation thread within Messages can be carried on in real time across these various devices and chat services.  It’s as easy as selecting a friend’s name, typing a message, and hitting (or tapping) enter to send.  Speaking of email, Facebook is giving every user the option to create an unique @facebook.com email address.  Boom; your FB friends collection just became your new address book.  “To be clear, Messages is not email,” states Facebook.  In fact, the many staples of email (such as subject lines, cc, bcc) will not be present.  The developer team “modeled [the new Messages] more closely to chat and reduced the number of things you need to do to send a message.”  Note that creating an @facebook.com email address is not required to use the new Messages portal; it is there as an alternative option to send and receive messages (it adds to Chat, IM, and SMS service support).  Next up is the Social Inbox.  Facebook says, “It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement.”  True, I guess.  Think of Social Inbox as a beefier, smarter version of Gmail’s Priority Inbox.  Your Messages inbox will scan your friends list and prioritize your messages based on that information.  Messages from friends and their friends will show up front and center, while all other messages (such as those from strangers or junk mail) will end up in folder labeled Other.  And conversations can be easily moved from Other to Inbox (if, for example, a stranger turns out to be a friend or relative you hadn’t friended yet).  Facebook promises you’ll have much control over who can and cannot send you messages via email in account settings.

Here’s an interesting look at the future from Facebook’s perspective: “Relatively soon, we’ll probably all stop using arbitrary ten digit numbers and bizarre sequences of characters to contact each other.  We will just select friends by name and be able to share with them instantly.  We aren’t there yet, but the changes today are a small first step.”

And that’s about it.  The new Messages and email address offers will begin to roll out to users “over the next few months”, so hang tight!

[Via FacebookBlog]