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Why You Shouldn't Ditch Your Email for Facebook

Zuckerberg's basket may not be best place for all your eggs

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 16, 2010 8:15 AM CST

(Newser) – Facebook's new messaging system incorporates email—as well as SMS, IMs, and Facebook Chat—but it's not smart to ditch your old email for a Facebook.com address, argues Adam Pash at Lifehacker, explaining three main reasons:

It's not email, as even Mark Zuckerberg says. All emails with the same user are treated like a single conversation, which is fine for short real-time chats but no good if you prefer more in-depth conversation or if you want to communicate with the same person using different threads.

You're putting all your eggs in one basket, and it may be tough to get them out again. Facebook may have opened up a little more lately but the "fact is—if you decide to leave Facebook—the service has never been good at letting you take your ball and play elsewhere," Pash writes
Your workplace might block it. Facebook was the second most commonly blocked site last year, while no email providers were in the top 10.

Click here for some reasons to embrace Facebook's new service.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about the new Facebook messaging service at an announcement in San Francisco yesterday. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

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Facebook believes that most conversations with friends are on-the-fly, short, real-time conversations, which is why they're not terribly concerned with making Facebook Messages work like email. - Adam Pash, Lifehacker

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Why You Shouldn't Ditch Your Email for Facebook

Zuckerberg's basket may not be best place for all your eggs

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