The Official Mafia Wars Blog posted that the family chat feature is now going away… For more info read below…
Mobsters,
Family Chat feature will be unavailable from 1st June 2012.
The Family Chat feature in Mafia Wars had been providing instant messaging service to our players since July 2011. Currently, due to significantly less participation from our community in this feature and due to a variety of performance reasons, we have decided to turn OFF the feature permanently.
While we have taken a decision to shut down Family Chat, it is imperative that we make sure that it will not interfere with your enjoyment of the game.
We welcome your feedback on the above change via this very quick survey and hope that you continue to enjoy Mafia Wars.
-The Mafia Wars Team