Facebook launches Modern Messaging System, fails to set the world aflame

After months of rumours and speculation Facebook finally got round to unveiling their “Project Titan” messaging product yesterday.  The new system centres around a unified inbox that deals with your IMs, SMS, email and Facebook messages, so in theory you’ll only have one conversation thread for each of your contacts.
Facebook will also be handing out @facebook.com email addresses to those that want them (IMAP support is coming in the future), but Zuckerberg was careful to note “This is not an email killer. This is a messaging experience that includes email as one part of it.”.  He even went so far as to call GMail a “really good product,” but the over-riding message of the event was that email is for old people, and that vital, thrusting youngsters will be using Facebook messaging.  So you’d better get with the times, Grandpa.
Zuckerberg went on to say that Facebook believe email is “too formal”, and a modern messaging system needs to be seamless and informal.  He also said a good messaging system is “short” – we hate reading long emails as much as the next guy, but sometimes they need to be that way, you know?
The backend that this system is based on has been built from the ground up by a team of 15 engineers – surprisingly the most that Facebook has ever devoted to one single project.  Your inbox will feature a full, searchable history of messages, and the system will be concurrent across all Facebook platforms (so it will work just fine on your mobile – an updated iPhone app is on the way, no Android love just yet).
The new software will be incrementally rolling out over the next few months, however if you just can’t wait you can sign up for early entry here.  Hopefully this staggered rollout will avert the wild-west style URL landgrab that happened when Facebook introduced custom URLs.