Facebook launches “E-mail”
16 November 2010
Facebook is giving its half billion users an email address and another reason not to leave the service for Google
Facebook is giving its half billion users an email address and another reason not to leave the service for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or Apple. You’ll now be able to text, email and chat all within your Facebook account.
Once you have your email address from Facebook you’ll be able to communicate outside Facebook from within adding to the 4 billion messages that we already send through Facebook every day; this includes chat and wall posts.
Adam Pash from Lifehacker spells out a few reasons he’s not too keen on the idea, Facebook ‘email’ is still set out like their messenger and emails with different subjects are grouped separately this means that if you use your email for more in-depth conversations, or you like to communicate with the same person using different threads, it just won't work. You're also putting all your communication eggs in one historically walled basket don’t expect Facebook to release any of your data back to you if you did decide to leave Facebook. The major issue with facebook email is that unlike other email providers your workplace will block it, if they haven’t already, you could get around this by getting everything forwarded to your phone, but who wants to be sitting in front of their PC replying to every single email by phone.
But Facebook aren’t really aiming at the business market or trying to kill Gmail, or whichever email provider your using, they will prioritise emails from your friends as well as offer better tagetted messaging based who your friends are, they also emphasis the point of being someones friend before we start emailing them. Forrester analyst Augie Ray said "Facebook isn't interested in being a tool for your flood of bills, email newsletters or other communications -- it's about facilitating and enhancing your personal relationships."
Chances are 9-5 we’ll still be using our outlook and gmail, and I’m sure Facebook have learnt from Google Waves mistake, so once we get home I image another part of our online lives will suddenly be a lot more facebook orientated.