Hey guys, uh, something you should know. I just discovered that Facebook has an "Other" inbox in the "Messages" folder that I wasn't aware about. I thought that "Messages" was where you received ALL of the messages. Apparently not. The "Other" inbox contains messages from people that aren't your friends, but are people you may know, and group and fan page e-mails.
Because I wasn't aware about this, I missed several invitations to birthday parties (they must think I'm an agoraphobe!), an invitation to connect with a distant cousin, and an e-mail from my mom's ex-boyfriend who wanted to get in touch with me (ick!), and e-mails from people on Dailykos.
Here's the Slate article on how this is causing a big problem for Facebook users:
Before the Social Inbox, all messages trickled into a user’s central inbox. But since the switch, messages don’t appear in the main inbox unless they’re from friends or friends-of-friends. Messages sent to mailing lists and broad distribution groups are also sifted out. Last November’s messaging revamp also introduced Facebook email and text messaging. Both must be activated before they work. If you activate Facebook email (at the top of your Messages landing page) or turn on text messaging, those messages will also filter into your main Social Inbox.
To be clear, I haven’t activated those new features: My problem was with only the most basic Facebook messages. And when I sent those angry emails to my colleagues, none of them knew about the Other tab either.
It would've been nice if you know...Facebook had a indication of how many MESSAGES were in the "Other" inbox. All you see is the "Other" when you see Messages.
Oy :-(