Valued Opinions Reveals Excitement Over Facebook's Latest Offering

LONDON, Feb. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Valued Opinions has announced that there is a high level of excitement over the launch of Facebook email addresses.

Although its success is yet to be seen, the latest market research suggests Facebook has its finger on the pulse. The results of Valued Opinion's latest online poll reveal that 22% of UK respondents will be quick to take up Facebook's new service. 25% of the opinion panel is undecided, and 52% don't think they will.

As Facebook's co-founder Mark Zuckeberg explained, the company's new service is something of a revolution: "It's not e-mail. It handles e-mail in addition to Facebook messages, and Facebook IM, and other IM and SMS and all the other different ways that you want to communicate."

Facebook has tried to respond to changing habits. While email remains the most common form of electronic communication for adults, for US teenagers, text-messaging has surpassed face-to-face chat, email, phone calls and SMS messaging.  Public opinion, gauged from market research companies such as Valued Opinions, plays an important part in helping technology companies to get it right.

Facebook's new product means that all mobile text messages, instant messages, online chat and emails end up in a special, all-in-one social inbox and users can reply however they choose, without the technology getting in the way. It aims to make electronic communication a more simple, real-time, immediate personal experience gradually replacing the traditional email which can be too slow and too formal. Its makers claim that its seamless messaging will provide a simple, convenient alternative to the current multiple, fragmented systems.

Facebook's system has other unique features that help users to see the messages that matter by filtering out spam, weighing up the priority of messages and filing messages from family and friends separately from those of strangers. It also automatically aggregates conversation histories, building up special archives so that users can trace communications with family or friends, which Zuckerberg likens to the modern equivalent of a treasure trove of letters stored in a box.  

With 70% of Facebook's 500 million users already regularly sending messages through the site- that's 4 billion messages every day- the competition has every right to be wary. Companies such as AOL, Google and Yahoo are desperately bringing out new features and social networking tools to try and keep up with the Facebook Phenomenon. Speculation is rife that eventually Facebook's new system will revolutionize the way we communicate; whether this is right remains to be seen.

About Valued Opinions:

Valued Opinions is an online market research platform where members have the opportunity to earn rewards by participating in online surveys and online polls. Through various partnerships with popular retailers such as Amazon.com, Tesco and HMV, Valued Opinions provides its members with attractive rewards in exchange for completing paid online surveys.

Made up of more than 2 million members globally, the Valued Opinions opinion panel provides market research companies with access to untapped opinions from a large database of consumers.

SOURCE Valued Opinions