The Facebook Blog

If you're like most people, you may have a few stubborn friends who haven't joined Facebook…yet. This can make reaching friends complicated—there are some friends you can send a Facebook message, and others you have to email. Not anymore. Now, when you're writing messages, you can send the message to people on Facebook, and to people not on Facebook.

Now you can enter a friend's email address into the To: line when you send a message or share an album, and Facebook will email them the message. Your friends will be able to reply without... signing up, and they will be able to see content you share with them. Keep in mind that all rules of privacy still apply; some Facebook content that you share (photos, groups, notes, etc.) won't be visible to your friend.

Facebook will add any email addresses that you message to your "friend selector", so you don't have to remember everyone's email address all the time. Also, if you message someone who is on Facebook but you use their email instead of their name, we'll automatically forward the message to their Facebook Inbox. As we continue to make Facebook more useful for everyone, these changes mean that there's no need to switch between Facebook and email for your daily communication needs.

PS. In case you didn't already know, you can invite friends to events and groups through their email addresses, and they can RSVP without signing up for Facebook. However, unlike messages, they will have to sign up to get in on the discussion boards and Wall posts.


Luke, a Facebook engineer, is never using email again. Ever.

The iPhone hasn't even been out for two months yet, but it has
already changed the way people think about the mobile web. Today we are taking our first step into that new mobile world with a new Facebook website designed just for iPhone at iphone.facebook.com.

Facebook for iPhone not only looks wonderful on that big touch screen, it makes it easier than ever to stay connected with your friends wherever you are. If you are like me, you may find yourself updating your status a bazillion times a day once you have Facebook in your pocket... everywhere you go. The site lets you search for people with just a few quick taps and call your friends directly from their profiles. Facebook events become even easier with your iPhone, as you can quickly look up maps and directions on the go.

The iPhone site is the second in our family of Facebook mobile sites. If you don't have an iPhone, check out the original Facebook Mobile at m.facebook.com.



Joe, a Facebook engineer, is updating his status from his iPhone.

Here at Facebook, we use our product as much as anyone. The day after a company party, you can find us looking at photos from said company party on Facebook. Doing a favor for a coworker might result in a fan group spontaneously appearing. But recently, our attention and borderline obsession has been squarely focused on a one particular platform application: Scrabulous.

Scrabulous lets you play scrabble with friends but without having to be in the same place or play at the same time. Here at the office, it's increasingly become the fodder... for trash talking, the subject of many conversations about two-letter words, and the browser window we all scramble to close as soon as a coworker nears our desks.

The initial version of the Courses application was created by Facebook to give you as much functionality as possible. As of today, we're turning off our version of Courses and have decided to turn this over to the developer community and let you – our users – decide which Courses application works best for you.

In many ways, our developer community is the best suited to create the applications that help people connect, track, and collaborate with their teachers, professors, and classmates. Many of our developers are in school and have used... some kind of collaboration software. Their experiences make them the ideal creators of useful education applications.

There are already a few applications ready to help you with all your needs. Course List is a bit more focused on high school, and Courses is more for college students.



Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook, is excited to see developers starting where Facebook started—in school.