Updated on December 10, 2021
An update on yesterday’s speculative post about Facebook gaining email. It seems I (and everyone else) was partially-right: Facebook is now getting email (and allowing users to have facebook.com addresses), but it’s an implementation as part of a revised, consolidated-sounding messaging system, one that somehow mashes together instant messaging, text messages (SMS), and chat. Tech news site Ars Technica has more about it:
http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/11/facebooks-new-messaging-system-mashes-up-sms-e-mail-im.ars
From the sounds of it, I don’t think Google’s Gmail will be threatened at all, especially given Facebook’s implementation has fewer features than Gmail (no subject lines?!). While I’m sure Facebook’s users will enjoy using it, anyone more serious about email will still want Gmail. As for Yahoo and Hotmail (moreso in my opinion Hotmail, lacking the popular sister site features Google/Facebook/to an extent Yahoo enjoys), they might be in a tighter spot.
Either way, given the security issues Facebook has now, I’m awaiting a future news story about Facebook’s email feature somehow going wrong…
