

Here's an idea for Facebook. Get rid of subject lines in messages - prakash
http://blog.tlb.org/subject-142

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decode
I always write useful subjects in Facebook messages and so do all of my
friends. Taking them away would make my Inbox unusable because of my primary
use case: organizing groups of people for some future activity or series of
activities.

Right now I have recent messages in my Facebook inbox about a fundraiser this
weekend, a series of local concerts happening this fall, a class reunion next
summer, and several group activities from the past few weeks. Additionally, I
have ongoing one-on-one conversations with two different people.

Since some of these conversations include the same people, not having a
subject to identify which thread is which would make them unusable. I'd just
see a list of messages and have no way to contextualize them in conversations.

I think the real key here is that my Facebook messages are almost always a
part of long-term conversations, not individual messages.

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pedalpete
It appears you are using the subject line as more of a meta-data type tool to
organize your events. Wouldn't it be better to have the ability to organize
and message events rather than manage all this through the messaging services?

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decode
I'm not sure adding more structure is always useful. When I'm throwing a party
for 30 people at a set date and time, I use event organization software, like
Facebook events. If I want to get a feeling for my friends' thoughts on the
local concert schedule this fall, I want to have a conversation with them. And
the subject, as in email, is meta-data about a conversation, not (necessarily)
the content of the conversation.

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dustingetz
Google wave is trying this, see preview video

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mcastner
They could also make the darned "Reply" link easier to find! It takes me way
too long to find it every time I want to reply to a message.

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axod
Do many people use messages on facebook? Most of the activity I see is wall
status updates, or wall->wall.

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mrshoe
The point of messages is that you can't see them, unless they're to/from you.

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axod
Sure, but then the only advantage over email is if you don't know someone's
email address but have them as a friend on fb.

So I can really see the value of status updates, wall->wall posts etc, but
messages? meh

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awad
i'd say that's a pretty good advantage when you have a few hundred friends
from throughout the years and don't have their email, or they don't have
yours, or perhaps you don't want to disclose yours

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qeorge
I like it. Ideally the title would be optional, and if left blank would
replaced by a snippet of the message.

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pg
Sounds like messages mean to be tweets.

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decode
In some cases that might be true, but I'm observing a lot of communication
among people my age (mid/late twenties) that used to happen over email is
moving to Facebook. I'm Facebook friends with a number of people that I spend
time with regularly, but I don't have their email addresses.

Here's why: it's harder to give someone your email address than to become
Facebook friends with them. For email, you have to write down a long string,
keep track of it until you get home, and correctly type it into a computer.
For Facebook, you just say, "Are you on Facebook? Are you friends with Jon?
Just look me up on his friends list."

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Raphael
Facebook is a resource for contact information. Most people put it on their
profile.

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chrischen
I get this same problem in playstation 3. Everyone just sends messages in the
title cause it shows up on their screen.

I don't think we don't do it to look like we're not trying to hard. I think we
don't do it cause we're too lazy to come up with a title for a quick message.

The title should just be automatically made from the first few characters

