Watch Out For Facebook Killer Email
Facebook’s secret Project Titan — a web-based email that was unofficially referred to internally as its “Gmail killer” was released on Monday Nov 15, to the public.
Even with over 550 Million users we still have a few stubborn friends who haven’t joined Facebook. This can makes 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. The hope is that eventually there will be no need to switch between Facebook and email for your daily communication needs.
Major Advantage Over Gmail & Yahoo
Facebook has the world’s most popular photos product, the most popular events product, and soon will have a very popular local deals product as well. It can tweak the design of its webmail client to display content from each of these in a seamless fashion (and don’t forget messages from games, or payments via Facebook Credits). And there’s also the social element: Facebook knows who your friends are and how closely you’re connected to them. Facebook’s email system will do a pretty good job figuring out which personal emails you want to read most and prioritize them accordingly
Major Disadvantage
Presently, there’s very little chance that Facebook Messages will ever be used for professional correspondence. Facebook is already banned in many corporate settings: It’s considered a time-waster and a potential security threat to some companies. Would a job applicant appear more professional sending his or her resume via a Gmail address or a Facebook one? There will be at least on group of businesses that will benefit from Facebook email system, small business owners and entrepreneurs. Facebook messaging system has become an essential tool for many and they will no doubt be the early adopters for Facebook email.
It’s clear that Facebook wants to become the ultimate contact list for everyone on the Web: Its social graph is an attempt to map all of the connections between its users. And yet the name “Facebook” is still strongly associated with personal pursuits, from photo sharing to playing FarmVille. To shake off those associations would be an arduous task. Facebook could, if it so desired, become a leader in personal e-mail between friends and family members — but for more serious correspondence, it’s unlikely just yet to be the medium of choice.
So, are you going to part of the early adopters and use Facebook email system?
