Message Systems Welcomes News on Facebook Messages

Statements from George Schlossnagle, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dave Lewis, Chief Marketing Officer, of Message Systems

November 15, 2010

COLUMBIA, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES - Message Systems, the premier provider of fast, flexible and holistic message management solutions, released the following statements in regards to today’s announcement of the new, multi-channel Facebook Messages service:

George Schlossnagle, President and Chief Executive Officer, Message Systems:
“Today’s announcement regarding the next evolution of Facebook Messages is very welcome news: essentially, the next generation of digital communications has arrived in a big way. Here at Message Systems we talk a lot about converged, multi-channel messaging - it’s the vision underlying our next-generation solutions such as Mobile Momentum, which provides convergent email/SMS capabilities. The new Facebook Messages service is in exact alignment with this vision.

For the end-user, multi-channel messaging means that conversations that start in email can seamlessly move to SMS or IM. You can receive and respond to messages using whatever medium or device you prefer. This kind of capability is very empowering for the individual. Yet for brands and online marketers that reach out to customers and prospects via email or other kind of digital messaging, today’s Facebook announcement will require a fundamental shift in their communications strategy.

As the individual gains greater control over incoming messages, so will it become more difficult for companies to initiate and carry on a dialog with customers. To carry on a dialog in this new converged messaging environment, it will become essential to gain an understanding of customer channel preferences and behaviors. Message relevance and context become all important. Only by delivering the ‘right’ message at the right time to your customer’s channel of choice will you be able to maintain a productive conversation. We congratulate Facebook, and look forward to doing our part to bring the benefits of converged, multi-channel messaging to individuals and organizations everywhere.”

Dave Lewis, Chief Marketing Officer, Message Systems:
“Make no mistake, Facebook’s announcement of a ‘social inbox’ is BIG news. The combination of email, text and IM in a single, easily accessible inbox for Facebook’s nearly 550 million users takes channel convergence to a whole new level. Of course, the magnitude of this news will depend on adoption by members of the Facebook community and how they actually use this new capability to interact with the companies they do business with. Companies should monitor this development closely and be alert to how Facebook’s ‘social inbox’ prompts changes in customer communication behavior. Given the user’s ability to filter and segregate messages, clearly contextual relevance will become increasingly important to reaching users of the new Facebook Messages service. The big question is whether customers will view the Facebook inbox as their home for just social interactions or use it in lieu of the services of other mailbox providers for all their digital messaging.

While certainly a forerunner of things to come, the answer to the question of customer usage will determine the shorter-term impact of the Facebook announcement. At a minimum, email marketers should be watching for changes in the domain distribution of their email lists and how that might impact sending practices and deliverability. They should also be mindful of the priority or purpose that customers assign to different email addresses. These points alone are important because they’ll require changes to data acquisition and management strategies as marketers seek to capture the ‘best’ addresses and link various addresses and other elements in their databases. But at a higher level, companies will need to also be attuned to the implications on cross-channel messaging to ensure the effectiveness of their ongoing customer communications.”

About Message Systems

Founded in 1997, Message Systems is a worldwide provider of message management solutions and services for marketing and email service providers (MSPs, ESPs), carriers and Internet service providers (ISPs), social networks and large enterprises that need to manage large volumes of business-critical email and other forms of digital messaging. Through a combination of technology, partnerships and intellectual capital, Message Systems offers a family of next generation software solutions and services that address the infrastructure and deliverability needs for organizations ranging from e-commerce companies to the Global 2000. With the most powerful message management platform on the market, Message Systems gets billions of unique messages to the right place at the right time every day. Headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, Message Systems has offices and a network of partners in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, go to messagesystems.com or call 877.887.3031

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