good news! Facebook launches mobile messaging app

Facebook launched a mobile messaging application for Apple's iPhone and Android devices. Facebook engineer Lucy Zhang said Facebook Messenger can be used to exchange messages with Facebook friends but also with other people in a user's telephone contact list.

Zhang, in a blog post, highlighted Messenger's group messaging capability.

"When you're on the go, coordinating a bunch of people can be tricky, especially if plans change at the last minute," she said. "With Messenger, you can quickly start a group conversation and message everyone at once."

Facebook said Messenger also has location- and photo-sharing features.

"If you choose to add your location, the people you're messaging with can easily find each other on the map," Zhang said. "You can also attach photos, so everyone else can see and comment on what you're looking at."

Messenger integrates text messages, instant messages and emails.

Zhang is a co-founder of Beluga, a startup founded by former Google employees that allows users to send group messages to family or friends.

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“Face it, Don’t Facebook It”

No one seems to know what’s the best way to handle online breakups. One kid said “racing to update his relationship status after a breakup” was healthy. Others said no way. Some people talked about how they learned about breakups through Facebook. While others said they have enough problems to worry about “some stupid boy breaking up with me on Face book”.
      It’s so interesting yet so utterly unsurprising that the views of what to do after your breakup can be so different. Breaking up is hard! It’s even harder now since there’s so much ‘physical’ (as in, documentable) evidence of your relationship online. Can we really expect young kids in young relationships to act like adults? Can we even expect ourselves to ‘act like adults’? What does that even mean?

The conference, which was sponsored by the Boston Public Health Commission, tried to be cool with the kids, letting them use cell phones throughout the talks and showed pictures of good celebrity breakups and bad celebrity breakups, but it still focused on the idea of “Face it, Don’t Facebook It”, which meant to break up in person and “reach an agreement” as opposed to sending a break up text or changing your status. It’s all good in theory but come on, we’re talking about kids who probably hate confrontation as much as they love Twilight. My advice to the kids: don’t get a Facebook.

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