Facebook today announced a revamp of their messaging system. The new system, which will be released slowly over the coming months, will integrate known ways to contact people into the new Facebook Messages. While they were keen to specify that this isn't email, email is definitively one part of it. The goal of the system is to simplify and streamline messaging between people. Everyone will have the option of having a @facebook.com email address, and anyone will be able to send them messages through email, to that address. Those emails will then show up in their Facebook messages. As users reply, it will be sent back by email. But then, if that person sends them a SMS or IM, it will show up in the same conversation, and same history thread. The system will, behind the scenes, route messages between email, SMS, IM and Facebook messages.

The messaging system will include two folders, the Friends and the Others folder. By default, your friends messages will show up right away, while everything else will show in the Others folder. Users will be able to bring up a message from the Others folder up to Friends if they want to. In the questions part of the announcement, they did say that while this system will include attachments for images and even files like documents and spreadsheets, it will not include voice or video, but it's a possibility for the future. Also, if someone not on Facebook sends you an email, it will show up in the Others folder by default, but can also be brought up to the default one. Finally, forwarding will be available, apparently a feature users requested often.