Facebook Email: Simple Improvements, Please!

Posted on January 27th, 2008.

Have you noticed an increase in your volume of email since joining Facebook? Hello!? I sure have. And, mostly, it’s a good thing because I’m meeting so many phenomenal new people.

However, I’m finding it a challenge to keep up with responses - 114 unopened emails last count, oh - strike that, now 115 since I started writing this post! I just can’t get to everyone, sorry. (If you’ve written to me and I haven’t responded yet, please do send me another note to let me know you’d like a response.)

I gotta say though, Facebook’s email system is soooo broken:

I can’t forward, blind copy, or archive to folders.
There’s no way to search emails for key words or people.
I can’t unsubscribe from Group emails, unless I leave the Group.
And, here’s a kicker: If I’m part of a previously existing thread of multiple recipients, even after BLOCKING one of the people in the list - their responses STILL show up in my Inbox. Arrrgh. C’mon Facebook - that’s a loophole in the blocking system.

As I wrote in my last post about Facebook abuse, when you block someone you become almost invisible to each other. Now, with this ongoing thread continuing to land in my Inbox - I see no way to get rid of it!! Darn annoying.

I need to dig out my copy of Getting Things Done by David Allen again. I just checked and have 27 pages of emails, totaling 525 threads. Ugh!! Truth is, I never go back beyond the first couple pages, so I may as well delete the old ones. But, my Inbox is doubling as my archives. Yet I can’t search. Hm, maybe I’m a hoarder?!

How about you - what do you love and hate about Facebook email? Have you found any secret tricks to managing the volume or filing for reference?

BTW, I gotta share - one of the *main* things I love about Facebook email is when I contact a well-known successful person, I get a response right away. It’s like fellow (most) Facebook members feel a rapport, a trust, an instant connection as if we’re members of the same club, so to speak. I got to interview internet multi-millionaire, Matt Bacak, and he told me point blank we would not have had the discussion had I tried to reach him any other way. Now that’s powerful! Kudos to Facebook.

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