13 ms·

Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

231 points by obilgic 16y ago

jhrobert 16y ago
If Twitter is smart they will provide the smart ultra cheap fast answer: mailto:username@twitter.com with automatic forwarding to your actual email (that they know of already). No brainer. I hope that facebook users will use their twitter name to setup their facebook email adress, ie: use it as a very public address. @jhr
resdirector 16y ago
"Killer"? Hard to make an email killer. Hotmail, for instance, is still incredibly popular, and will continue to be.
jscore 16y ago
I closed my account few months ago, does this mean I will miss the revolution?
obilgic 16y ago
I was thinking about this when they launched username system, without knowing rumors about that.
- drgath 16y ago
  You and everyone else.
gsivil 16y ago
it seems convenient within Facebook but I would not like using a @facebook.com email address for serious communication. Imagine applying for college with such an address.
- samfoo 16y ago
  Is @gmail.com somehow more distinguished?
  - obilgic 16y ago
    If you use @facebook.com You basically share your profile(at least profile picture)
    - samfoo 16y ago
      At the risk of sounding flippant: So? Isn't your public facing Facebook profile picture easily discoverable anyway? If you're submitting, for example, a college application, they already have way more information on you anyway. The same goes for a job application.
  - gsivil 16y ago
    I think so. It seems more neutral at least. I like facebook for whatever it is but not for professional use.
    - moshezadka 16y ago
      What do you mean "not for professional use"? For most professional use, meaning "work", I use work's e-mail system (usually based on Exchange, but I guess that depends on where you work). If I apply to companies, do you think they really care what your address is? I do some of the interviewing duties at work, and I can tell you my eyes pretty much skip over the e-mail part of the resume. HR needs it to e-mail them "your interview is on the 10/10 at 10:10am", but I doubt the HR person really cares about the address beyond copy'n'pasting it. (Mind you, if I got work e-mail from a personal address, I would regard this as unprofessional behavior, but it doesn't matter if it's @gmail.com or @faceboook.com)
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - ArcticCelt 16y ago
    To me yes. In a professional image scale I would definitively rank facebook.com less professional than gmail.com but maybe slightly better than WorlOfWarcraft.com
- davidedicillo 16y ago
  don't you think people would google you anyway? that's the first thing i do when i receive an email from someone i don't know or a possible client. well at least before i started using rapportive.
michaelhart 16y ago
The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to even make a dent in people's minds. And as others have pointed out, Facebook.com is not associated with professionalism (unless you're a recruiter or tech blogger or something). All in all, I think nobody will care at the end of the day.
- davidedicillo 16y ago
  > The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to even make a dent in people's minds I guarantee you that they are going to become the default address between people 16 and under. My brother is 16 and doesn't have an email address, but he does have a facebook account.
  - ericflo 16y ago
    That's the scariest thing I've read so far today.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - slyn 16y ago
      1: My daughter just moved into her own house today. 2: Wow, awesome! I should call them to congratulate her! Whats the new house number? 1: Oh, she doesn't have a landline, she just uses her cell phone. 2: That's the scariest thing I've heard so far today. 1: ???... To the newest generations email is an antiquated technology that has no real use among their peers. Eventually they might get some email address for college/professional use, but that's practically akin to a fresh college grad now getting a fax machine because "its what we use at the office". Not shocking. Edit: Unless by "the scariest thing" you mean the idea of xyz@facebook.com becoming the default for the >17 crowd, in which case, disregard my nonsense.
      - NZ_Matt 16y ago
        This is very true. I'm 20 and I've never used my personal email regularly and I'm sure most of my friends haven't either. We've always used MSN or AIM and more recently Facebook to keep in touch.
ajg1977 16y ago
I will be really interested to see this, because as it stands Facebook's messaging interface is barely any better than 2001's Hotmail (you do get a pretty picture with address autocomplete though). Going from where they are now to anywhere close to being a 'Gmail killer' is a humongous step.
- tafle 16y ago
  A humongous step that Techcrunch is more than happy to make.
  - sp4rki 16y ago
    Techcrunch? What are you talking about?
    - tafle 16y ago
      The title of their article.
      - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
        "killer" is journalistic shorthand for "rival", they just want the conflict and the attendant pageviews, they don't care who wins or who is likely to win.
        yesimahuman 16y ago
        Or if there is even a winner. Sometimes people forget that companies compete with each other and we don't all use the same products from the same companies.
      - swaits 16y ago
        TC cited that as the phrase being used inside Facebook. Did you RTFA?
      - sp4rki 16y ago
darklajid 16y ago
I usually try to stop myself being overly protective of privacy. But - I already thought about leaving GMail several times to make sure that I don't rely on a big company that knows a lot about me. Now Facebook, that would be an alternative. Uhm - wait a minute! I do think they're going to pull this off though. Lots of people I know are still (happily) using the "older" services around, local free email providers, hotmail, whatever. A sexy webmail client, promoted by the site they use heavily? Sounds like a dealbreaker. Lots of non-technical people don't know Google as something other than a field to type searches into (or even rely on the browser search fields). Facebook could "educate" those to switch quite easily, I guess, given a good marketing strategy and some neat "integrate your mails with your status updates" features. Ugh..
tafle 16y ago
I think an interesting case here that will be affected here is how social circles were dealing that one stubborn Facebook holdout. Before, there were two choices. Either move communication to email, or leave them out of the loop. Now the choice is easy, and it will all happen within Facebook.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
asknemo 16y ago
Even if the thing turns out to be unbelievably amazing, I doubt companies would like people to be constantly logged in to facebook "for mail" during work. For many offices, a browser tab on facebook could just imply chit-chat with friends, farmville, and many other unproductive pursuits. How could it be a "Gmail Killer" with such a born defect?
- enqk 16y ago
  aren't iphones the gateway from work to facebook?
trotsky 16y ago
If facebook can really deliver a rock solid web mail client, I think they will really be a company to watch in the rest of 1996 and 1997. If they play their cards right they may get snapped up by an industry powerhouse like yahoo or excite@home for eight figures.
- paraschopra 16y ago
  You have lots of upvotes, so what you are saying must be interesting. But I can't seem to get it! Can anyone explain what's this about?
  - dotBen 16y ago
    back in that era all of the successful players - you know, the REALLY successful players like Yahoo, Microsoft and Excite (!) had web-mail clients that were basically startups they acquired. It was only Google that really built a killer web-mail client from scratch in-house.
    - mkramlich 16y ago
      and the Google client was made mostly by @paul Buchheit, who just left Facebook for YC.
  - varjag 16y ago
    Business 2.0 speak, perhaps with a hint that web email at this point is OLD NEWS?
  - look_lookatme 16y ago
    Trotsky has lots of upvotes because he or she managed rev the Hacker News Facebook Hate Machine with a bit of humor.
    - brandnewlow 16y ago
      Can we get a trademark on the HNFHM?
gojomo 16y ago
If @facebook.com email addresses have a stronger link to real, non-spammy, non-mass-produced identities than other domains, they could become preferred at many other sites -- a broader version of Facebook Connect.
- michaelhart 16y ago
  Wrong -- your FB email address will likely have the same prefix as your vanity URL. Guess that that means? Spam bots know your email address already.
  - TomasSedovic 16y ago
    I think he means it the other way: e-mail addresses ending with facebook.com could signal "this is a genuine person, not a spammer".
    - michaelhart 16y ago
      Yet you're getting bombarded with spam. Not to mention, Facebook accounts are very easy to create. So I don't see that either.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      Email addresses can be spoofed.
      - abraham 16y ago
        Not when you get it through Facebook Connect authorization.
    - eliben 16y ago
      Have you encountered many spammers with @gmail.com addresses?
      - drgath 16y ago
RtodaAV 16y ago
I don't have a facebook account but idk about this. Will users get another username for their email address or use their vanity usernames? The under 18 crowd will use it because like another poster brought up, my brother also doesn't have a email address. He tried using mine.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
sp4rki 16y ago
I've always thought that Facebook could make a real difference by becoming a central hub to control your "persona" or identity so to speak. Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook uri) to register for anything. Instead they're trying to undercut Google by keeping them out of the 'shared data' agreement and now they're going into... e-mail and messaging? I'd rather they work on improving Facebook Connect and give me a way to control my data (and usable privacy controls while we're at it). I sure as hell don't want my personal email (and even less any business or corporate email) going through Facebook. Hell I have a hard time accepting Gmail, though it's so convenient I compromise. Lots of people say that Facebook won't go the way of MySpace. But you know what? Lots of people said the same thing about MySpace too. Everyday I see or hear more and more about people I know just not using their accounts anymore and in some cases actually deleting them; even I don't get much value from it either this days. I think Facebook is losing direction and just trying to wow users with amazing features that no one really needs. They need to focusing on making what they have better, not adding features and avoiding integration with other services.
- copper 16y ago
  > Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook uri) to register for anything. Facebook has done exactly this, and there's been quite a bit of backlash, with some discussion on this site itself.
  - sp4rki 16y ago
    Facebook Connect has a long way from being the "identity manager" I speak of, and it's integration with applications as it is now leaves a lot to be desired. There has been backslash because 1) it's a mediocre implementation and 2) the lack of openness on behalf of Facebook and their methods are not in the best interest of either the users or the applications that could use this system. Facebook could have become the central hub in which you can manage your identity (in an open way of course). Facebook could allow you to easily do anything on the web with fewer clicks by means of integration with other sevices. Instead they rather have you locked in to using their services and implementations and that is what I don't agree on. I wished it followed what I want, but whatever they do I wish it was adding value to the experience instead of just creating a more locked in ecosystem.
pshapiro 16y ago
Personally I really don't want my email visible to Facebook. What would they do with my information? Google already set the precedent for leveraging email data _somehow_. If so, Facebook will probably push the boundaries while carefully marketing it so that users accept something they would not have just previously. I only have a problem with this because they're profiting from data that users would not have allowed them to sell to advertisers if they had known about the terms when signing up. So it's like a bait and switch and that makes me distrust them.
maheshs 16y ago
Google try to integrate social network with gmail (buzz) and failed. Now facebook is trying to integrate social network with mail and result would be fail IMHO. Mail and "social networks" are different need.
revoltingx 16y ago
Social networking is lame.
DjDarkman 16y ago
Now Facebook will have no excuse not to allow exporting of friends email address... well they will probably think of something else. I doubt they could kill GMail, if there is one thing Google is good at is, fast and efficient interfaces, it may not be pretty, but who cares, it's an email client.
iuguy 16y ago
Does anyone have any decent info on which free mail service is the most popular? I know a fair amount of people use any mixture of hotmail, gmail and yahoo. Perhaps 'killing gmail' isn't as big as killing hotmail/live/badabingmail.
- bhrgunatha 16y ago
  I'd be very interested to see stats on this, but my money is on yahoo. Despite their decline in the US and Europe, they are massively dominant in Asia in search, shopping and mail.
  - pbiggar 16y ago
    I remember seeing stats recently. Hotmail, then Yahoo, then Gmail. Gmail have something like 100million users, and hotmail has 250(?)million I think.
- allbutlost 16y ago
  Fairly recent [1] stats seem to point to: hotmail: 360m+ active accounts yahoo: 275m+ active accounts Gmail in 3rd, followed by AOL webmail [2} Although yahoo! mail seems to have a more active user base as it's ahead on most site ranking systems [3]. Sources: [1] http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statist... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol-email-in-the-us-to-take-no-3-spot/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol-email... [3] http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.html http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.ht...
  - treblig 16y ago
    This is wild. When Facebook flips the switch, they'll instantly become the largest email service.
    - jonknee 16y ago
      They'll actually have to get people to use it before being large (the whole "active" part). I'll never use it and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
d_r 16y ago
Aside from the merits of this story, has anything that was branded "killer" by the media actually ended up being even moderately successful? (The various iPhone killers, Facebook killers, Google killers, and so on come to mind...)
- khafra 16y ago
  Presumably TechCrunch feels some affection for Google, and has decided to give facemail the tech-journalism kiss of death.
- gnufs 16y ago
  Android
zecg 16y ago
Another address people will just forward to their gmail. The article claims facebook has "the most popular photos product"... it may be true, but their "photos product" is shit.
Estragon 16y ago
Are there any for-pay gmail-like mail services out there offered by companies who aren't trying to make money by selling their users to their advertisers? I use gnus at the moment, but it's starting to feel a bit long in the tooth. On the other hand, the thought of having all my email in a marketer's database kind of squicks me.
- smiler 16y ago
  Google apps premier. No advertising
rkwz 16y ago
I think Facebook has much much bigger goals than silly gmail killing. It's trying to become the internet for all those who don't know the difference between a browser, web site and the internet. Offering email services is just a small step in that direction.
- mistermann 16y ago
  I agree. One market I'd like to see them enter is online payments and micropayments, they have enough reach that they could probably pull it off.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    Facebook Credits don't count?
    - mistermann 16y ago
      Not familiar with those....are they interchangeable for money? I'd like to be able to easily send $5 to a friend via facebook, or 25 cents to the author of a blog post I enjoyed. Others have tried the micropayments, but it needs a heavyweight to really pull it off. Maybe facebook can buy a startup that has it nicely figured out technically, but can't get traction.
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        You buy them with real money, and can spend them within applications on Facebook. It's not usable for anything outside of Facebook, or directly sending stuff to your friends. But it's still the beginnings of an entry into the market.
  - BBonifield 16y ago
    You can already purchase Facebook credits for games and the like. It's just a matter of time before they transition that into something with a wider reach.
shuaib 16y ago
O no, please! Why do they all have to turn into I-completely-want-to-own-your-Internet-life giants? Isn't doing one thing good enough, enough? Who needs yet another email service provider?
JonnieCache 16y ago
I see this as a good thing. As others have mentioned here, FB messaging is more popular than email for a lot of people. This means I'll be able to communicate effectively with my friends who check their FB an order of magnitude more than their email (almost all of them,) using SMTP in any way that I choose rather than having to log into FB with all its attendant awfulness. How does this news represent anything other than FB rewriting its inbox/messaging tool to operate over SMTP/IMAP? And how can that be anything but good? Okay we all wish they'd used the Wave Federation Protocol, but we can't have everything we want.
yread 16y ago
Well for me Gmail's killer is the build 1060 of Opera 11
Supermighty 16y ago
The killer aspect of any facebook email project is that your friends are automatically white listed and in your address book.
TallGuyShort 16y ago
Maybe I'm biased by having seen The Social Network, but does anyone else get the feeling that Facebook is motivated by hurting other people? I mean, when Google was starting to get big, it seemed like they were driven by their own creativity, by their drive to be awesome. But Facebook just always exudes this attitude of jealousy. edit: Any of the downvoters care to explain? It's an honest question about two different companies - if you disagree, I'd like to hear what you think.
- cmer 16y ago
  It's just business. They'll do what it takes to get new users and to keep them. The reason they will be giving away @facebook.com email addresses is the same reason why my mother in law won't get off AOL. She doesn't want to lose her email address.
  - TallGuyShort 16y ago
    Yeah - I get that, but unless I've just been spared from the darker side of business, I've never worked for a company that would have called something "The X Killer" internally. People are aware of their competitors and what they need to do to beat them, but it seems like an unusual focus to focus on "killing" someone else product than coming up with something customers want even more.
gonzo 16y ago
Facebook is the new AOL
Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
Zuckerberg is absolutely the man I want to trust with my e-mail.
- notyourwork 16y ago
  Dare this not be sarcasm?
  - Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
    Sarcasm? The word isn't even in my dictionary. Actually looking at it the whole section from marmalade to turbot appears to be missing. (With thanks to Douglas Adams for the joke).
- jobu 16y ago
  Obvious sarcasm, and I agree. Facebook has become synonymous with insecurity, poor privacy, and scams. Why anyone would trust them with personal info is beyond me. It's not that I completely trust google either, but they do seem to have a better track record of having their users interests in mind.
- sasidharm 16y ago
  If you already trust Google with your email, then it cant be that bad.
  - sorbus 16y ago
    Google doesn't have a tendency to change their privacy policy and intentionally release private information, while Facebook does. [EDIT: Changed "the" to "their," and "rules" to "policy," as this makes my sentence both look better and more accurate.]
    - alexgartrell 16y ago
      What about Buzz?
u48998 16y ago
Well, didn't they buy Drop.io? So obviously they're going after our emails. The interesting thing would be to see if they require people to adopt new email addresses or not
dinedal 16y ago
Something tells me that now I am going to get an email in my Gmail for every email that I get in my facemail telling me I have a new facemail.
- swolchok 16y ago
  This should actually mean I don't need to visit facebook.com anymore if there is indeed POP3 or IMAP access, because (presumably) they will send full messages to Titan rather than the current "you have a new message NOW CLICK ME", and POP3 access to Titan means that I can get Facebook messaging through GMail. The catch is probably going to be a lack of SMTP...
MortenK 16y ago
Wow, can't wait to see all my personal contact info publicly available after writing a merry christmas mail to auntlisa@facebook.com
zacharypinter 16y ago
Wasn't facebook's justification for not letting you export your friends' email adresses because they weren't an email application? Now that Facebook does email, will they allow an email export?
ary 16y ago
The sad thing is that facebook itself is already somewhat of a "Gmail killer." I have a ton of people that will only contact me through facebook. When I ask why they don't use email they usually don't have an answer. The ones that do mumble something about convenience.
- owkaye 16y ago
  I have NO ONE who prefers facebook to email. Then again I'm not a very social person online. I use the Internet primarily for research (self-education, it's like a huge free library on my desk) ... and for business, and business users certainly do not rely on facebook for online communication. I doubt they ever will.
- smackfu 16y ago
  The answer is usually "because I never check my email".
cyanbane 16y ago
How long till we see cellphones (not the purported FB phone) utilize just one source for your contacts? I just got a WP7 phone and had to merge all my contacts in from multiple sources, if instead MS just piggybacked off FB only, it would make things far easier for the end user. Also FB could claim "portability" to some degree (even if just with their partner MS)
randall 16y ago
Isn't this the definition of feature creep? Everything devolves till eventually it can check email. [someone more intelligent than me will find the source of that quote... I'm having a tough morning.]
tlrobinson 16y ago
I wonder if this has to do with the recent back-and-forth antics between Facebook and Google. It would make sense that Facebook wants a way for people to get their contacts out of Gmail...
didip 16y ago
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. -- Jamie Zawinski
savrajsingh 16y ago
called it: http://twitter.com/#!/savraj/status/2138507508 http://twitter.com/#!/savraj/status/2138507508 :)
fjabre 16y ago
If Apple announces a new product, the world looks on with curiosity and awe. If Facebook announces a new product, the world looks on with scorn and distrust.
topek 16y ago
Does anyone else think, that this was the main reason behind the "GMail blocks import" story (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877845 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877845)?
JarekS 16y ago
Don't you guys think that it makes much more sense for Facebook to allow their users to hook up their email accounts (GMail, Hotmail etc.) via IMAP/POP and just be much better email interface with some extras? Facebook could give priority sorting (based on your social graph), instant identification (kind of Rapportive features), and really easy to use and powerful address book (your social graph).

231 points by obilgic 16y ago

If Twitter is smart they will provide the smart ultra cheap fast answer: mailto:username@twitter.com with automatic forwarding to your actual email (that they know of already). No brainer. I hope that facebook users will use their twitter name to setup their facebook email adress, ie: use it as a very public address. @jhr

resdirector 16y ago

"Killer"? Hard to make an email killer. Hotmail, for instance, is still incredibly popular, and will continue to be.

jscore 16y ago

I closed my account few months ago, does this mean I will miss the revolution?

obilgic 16y ago

I was thinking about this when they launched username system, without knowing rumors about that.

drgath 16y ago
You and everyone else.

gsivil 16y ago

it seems convenient within Facebook but I would not like using a @facebook.com email address for serious communication. Imagine applying for college with such an address.

samfoo 16y ago
Is @gmail.com somehow more distinguished?
- obilgic 16y ago
  If you use @facebook.com You basically share your profile(at least profile picture)
  - samfoo 16y ago
    At the risk of sounding flippant: So? Isn't your public facing Facebook profile picture easily discoverable anyway? If you're submitting, for example, a college application, they already have way more information on you anyway. The same goes for a job application.
- gsivil 16y ago
  I think so. It seems more neutral at least. I like facebook for whatever it is but not for professional use.
  - moshezadka 16y ago
    What do you mean "not for professional use"? For most professional use, meaning "work", I use work's e-mail system (usually based on Exchange, but I guess that depends on where you work). If I apply to companies, do you think they really care what your address is? I do some of the interviewing duties at work, and I can tell you my eyes pretty much skip over the e-mail part of the resume. HR needs it to e-mail them "your interview is on the 10/10 at 10:10am", but I doubt the HR person really cares about the address beyond copy'n'pasting it. (Mind you, if I got work e-mail from a personal address, I would regard this as unprofessional behavior, but it doesn't matter if it's @gmail.com or @faceboook.com)
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- ArcticCelt 16y ago
  To me yes. In a professional image scale I would definitively rank facebook.com less professional than gmail.com but maybe slightly better than WorlOfWarcraft.com
davidedicillo 16y ago
don't you think people would google you anyway? that's the first thing i do when i receive an email from someone i don't know or a possible client. well at least before i started using rapportive.

michaelhart 16y ago

The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to even make a dent in people's minds. And as others have pointed out, Facebook.com is not associated with professionalism (unless you're a recruiter or tech blogger or something). All in all, I think nobody will care at the end of the day.

davidedicillo 16y ago
> The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to even make a dent in people's minds I guarantee you that they are going to become the default address between people 16 and under. My brother is 16 and doesn't have an email address, but he does have a facebook account.
- ericflo 16y ago
  That's the scariest thing I've read so far today.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - slyn 16y ago
    1: My daughter just moved into her own house today. 2: Wow, awesome! I should call them to congratulate her! Whats the new house number? 1: Oh, she doesn't have a landline, she just uses her cell phone. 2: That's the scariest thing I've heard so far today. 1: ???... To the newest generations email is an antiquated technology that has no real use among their peers. Eventually they might get some email address for college/professional use, but that's practically akin to a fresh college grad now getting a fax machine because "its what we use at the office". Not shocking. Edit: Unless by "the scariest thing" you mean the idea of xyz@facebook.com becoming the default for the >17 crowd, in which case, disregard my nonsense.
    - NZ_Matt 16y ago
      This is very true. I'm 20 and I've never used my personal email regularly and I'm sure most of my friends haven't either. We've always used MSN or AIM and more recently Facebook to keep in touch.

ajg1977 16y ago

I will be really interested to see this, because as it stands Facebook's messaging interface is barely any better than 2001's Hotmail (you do get a pretty picture with address autocomplete though). Going from where they are now to anywhere close to being a 'Gmail killer' is a humongous step.

tafle 16y ago
A humongous step that Techcrunch is more than happy to make.
- sp4rki 16y ago
  Techcrunch? What are you talking about?
  - tafle 16y ago
    The title of their article.
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      "killer" is journalistic shorthand for "rival", they just want the conflict and the attendant pageviews, they don't care who wins or who is likely to win.
      - yesimahuman 16y ago
        Or if there is even a winner. Sometimes people forget that companies compete with each other and we don't all use the same products from the same companies.
    - swaits 16y ago
      TC cited that as the phrase being used inside Facebook. Did you RTFA?
    - sp4rki 16y ago

darklajid 16y ago

I usually try to stop myself being overly protective of privacy. But - I already thought about leaving GMail several times to make sure that I don't rely on a big company that knows a lot about me. Now Facebook, that would be an alternative. Uhm - wait a minute! I do think they're going to pull this off though. Lots of people I know are still (happily) using the "older" services around, local free email providers, hotmail, whatever. A sexy webmail client, promoted by the site they use heavily? Sounds like a dealbreaker. Lots of non-technical people don't know Google as something other than a field to type searches into (or even rely on the browser search fields). Facebook could "educate" those to switch quite easily, I guess, given a good marketing strategy and some neat "integrate your mails with your status updates" features. Ugh..

tafle 16y ago

I think an interesting case here that will be affected here is how social circles were dealing that one stubborn Facebook holdout. Before, there were two choices. Either move communication to email, or leave them out of the loop. Now the choice is easy, and it will all happen within Facebook.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

asknemo 16y ago

Even if the thing turns out to be unbelievably amazing, I doubt companies would like people to be constantly logged in to facebook "for mail" during work. For many offices, a browser tab on facebook could just imply chit-chat with friends, farmville, and many other unproductive pursuits. How could it be a "Gmail Killer" with such a born defect?

enqk 16y ago
aren't iphones the gateway from work to facebook?

trotsky 16y ago

If facebook can really deliver a rock solid web mail client, I think they will really be a company to watch in the rest of 1996 and 1997. If they play their cards right they may get snapped up by an industry powerhouse like yahoo or excite@home for eight figures.

paraschopra 16y ago
You have lots of upvotes, so what you are saying must be interesting. But I can't seem to get it! Can anyone explain what's this about?
- dotBen 16y ago
  back in that era all of the successful players - you know, the REALLY successful players like Yahoo, Microsoft and Excite (!) had web-mail clients that were basically startups they acquired. It was only Google that really built a killer web-mail client from scratch in-house.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    and the Google client was made mostly by @paul Buchheit, who just left Facebook for YC.
- varjag 16y ago
  Business 2.0 speak, perhaps with a hint that web email at this point is OLD NEWS?
- look_lookatme 16y ago
  Trotsky has lots of upvotes because he or she managed rev the Hacker News Facebook Hate Machine with a bit of humor.
  - brandnewlow 16y ago
    Can we get a trademark on the HNFHM?

gojomo 16y ago

If @facebook.com email addresses have a stronger link to real, non-spammy, non-mass-produced identities than other domains, they could become preferred at many other sites -- a broader version of Facebook Connect.

michaelhart 16y ago
Wrong -- your FB email address will likely have the same prefix as your vanity URL. Guess that that means? Spam bots know your email address already.
- TomasSedovic 16y ago
  I think he means it the other way: e-mail addresses ending with facebook.com could signal "this is a genuine person, not a spammer".
  - michaelhart 16y ago
    Yet you're getting bombarded with spam. Not to mention, Facebook accounts are very easy to create. So I don't see that either.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Email addresses can be spoofed.
    - abraham 16y ago
      Not when you get it through Facebook Connect authorization.
  - eliben 16y ago
    Have you encountered many spammers with @gmail.com addresses?
    - drgath 16y ago

RtodaAV 16y ago

I don't have a facebook account but idk about this. Will users get another username for their email address or use their vanity usernames? The under 18 crowd will use it because like another poster brought up, my brother also doesn't have a email address. He tried using mine.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

sp4rki 16y ago

I've always thought that Facebook could make a real difference by becoming a central hub to control your "persona" or identity so to speak. Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook uri) to register for anything. Instead they're trying to undercut Google by keeping them out of the 'shared data' agreement and now they're going into... e-mail and messaging? I'd rather they work on improving Facebook Connect and give me a way to control my data (and usable privacy controls while we're at it). I sure as hell don't want my personal email (and even less any business or corporate email) going through Facebook. Hell I have a hard time accepting Gmail, though it's so convenient I compromise. Lots of people say that Facebook won't go the way of MySpace. But you know what? Lots of people said the same thing about MySpace too. Everyday I see or hear more and more about people I know just not using their accounts anymore and in some cases actually deleting them; even I don't get much value from it either this days. I think Facebook is losing direction and just trying to wow users with amazing features that no one really needs. They need to focusing on making what they have better, not adding features and avoiding integration with other services.

copper 16y ago
> Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook uri) to register for anything. Facebook has done exactly this, and there's been quite a bit of backlash, with some discussion on this site itself.
- sp4rki 16y ago
  Facebook Connect has a long way from being the "identity manager" I speak of, and it's integration with applications as it is now leaves a lot to be desired. There has been backslash because 1) it's a mediocre implementation and 2) the lack of openness on behalf of Facebook and their methods are not in the best interest of either the users or the applications that could use this system. Facebook could have become the central hub in which you can manage your identity (in an open way of course). Facebook could allow you to easily do anything on the web with fewer clicks by means of integration with other sevices. Instead they rather have you locked in to using their services and implementations and that is what I don't agree on. I wished it followed what I want, but whatever they do I wish it was adding value to the experience instead of just creating a more locked in ecosystem.

pshapiro 16y ago

Personally I really don't want my email visible to Facebook. What would they do with my information? Google already set the precedent for leveraging email data _somehow_. If so, Facebook will probably push the boundaries while carefully marketing it so that users accept something they would not have just previously. I only have a problem with this because they're profiting from data that users would not have allowed them to sell to advertisers if they had known about the terms when signing up. So it's like a bait and switch and that makes me distrust them.

maheshs 16y ago

Google try to integrate social network with gmail (buzz) and failed. Now facebook is trying to integrate social network with mail and result would be fail IMHO. Mail and "social networks" are different need.

revoltingx 16y ago

Social networking is lame.

DjDarkman 16y ago

Now Facebook will have no excuse not to allow exporting of friends email address... well they will probably think of something else. I doubt they could kill GMail, if there is one thing Google is good at is, fast and efficient interfaces, it may not be pretty, but who cares, it's an email client.

iuguy 16y ago

Does anyone have any decent info on which free mail service is the most popular? I know a fair amount of people use any mixture of hotmail, gmail and yahoo. Perhaps 'killing gmail' isn't as big as killing hotmail/live/badabingmail.

bhrgunatha 16y ago
I'd be very interested to see stats on this, but my money is on yahoo. Despite their decline in the US and Europe, they are massively dominant in Asia in search, shopping and mail.
- pbiggar 16y ago
  I remember seeing stats recently. Hotmail, then Yahoo, then Gmail. Gmail have something like 100million users, and hotmail has 250(?)million I think.
allbutlost 16y ago
Fairly recent [1] stats seem to point to: hotmail: 360m+ active accounts yahoo: 275m+ active accounts Gmail in 3rd, followed by AOL webmail [2} Although yahoo! mail seems to have a more active user base as it's ahead on most site ranking systems [3]. Sources: [1] http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statist... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol-email-in-the-us-to-take-no-3-spot/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol-email... [3] http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.html http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.ht...
- treblig 16y ago
  This is wild. When Facebook flips the switch, they'll instantly become the largest email service.
  - jonknee 16y ago
    They'll actually have to get people to use it before being large (the whole "active" part). I'll never use it and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

d_r 16y ago

Aside from the merits of this story, has anything that was branded "killer" by the media actually ended up being even moderately successful? (The various iPhone killers, Facebook killers, Google killers, and so on come to mind...)

khafra 16y ago
Presumably TechCrunch feels some affection for Google, and has decided to give facemail the tech-journalism kiss of death.
gnufs 16y ago
Android

zecg 16y ago

Another address people will just forward to their gmail. The article claims facebook has "the most popular photos product"... it may be true, but their "photos product" is shit.

Estragon 16y ago

Are there any for-pay gmail-like mail services out there offered by companies who aren't trying to make money by selling their users to their advertisers? I use gnus at the moment, but it's starting to feel a bit long in the tooth. On the other hand, the thought of having all my email in a marketer's database kind of squicks me.

smiler 16y ago
Google apps premier. No advertising

rkwz 16y ago

I think Facebook has much much bigger goals than silly gmail killing. It's trying to become the internet for all those who don't know the difference between a browser, web site and the internet. Offering email services is just a small step in that direction.

mistermann 16y ago
I agree. One market I'd like to see them enter is online payments and micropayments, they have enough reach that they could probably pull it off.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  Facebook Credits don't count?
  - mistermann 16y ago
    Not familiar with those....are they interchangeable for money? I'd like to be able to easily send $5 to a friend via facebook, or 25 cents to the author of a blog post I enjoyed. Others have tried the micropayments, but it needs a heavyweight to really pull it off. Maybe facebook can buy a startup that has it nicely figured out technically, but can't get traction.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      You buy them with real money, and can spend them within applications on Facebook. It's not usable for anything outside of Facebook, or directly sending stuff to your friends. But it's still the beginnings of an entry into the market.
- BBonifield 16y ago
  You can already purchase Facebook credits for games and the like. It's just a matter of time before they transition that into something with a wider reach.

shuaib 16y ago

O no, please! Why do they all have to turn into I-completely-want-to-own-your-Internet-life giants? Isn't doing one thing good enough, enough? Who needs yet another email service provider?

JonnieCache 16y ago

I see this as a good thing. As others have mentioned here, FB messaging is more popular than email for a lot of people. This means I'll be able to communicate effectively with my friends who check their FB an order of magnitude more than their email (almost all of them,) using SMTP in any way that I choose rather than having to log into FB with all its attendant awfulness. How does this news represent anything other than FB rewriting its inbox/messaging tool to operate over SMTP/IMAP? And how can that be anything but good? Okay we all wish they'd used the Wave Federation Protocol, but we can't have everything we want.

yread 16y ago

Well for me Gmail's killer is the build 1060 of Opera 11

Supermighty 16y ago

The killer aspect of any facebook email project is that your friends are automatically white listed and in your address book.

TallGuyShort 16y ago

Maybe I'm biased by having seen The Social Network, but does anyone else get the feeling that Facebook is motivated by hurting other people? I mean, when Google was starting to get big, it seemed like they were driven by their own creativity, by their drive to be awesome. But Facebook just always exudes this attitude of jealousy. edit: Any of the downvoters care to explain? It's an honest question about two different companies - if you disagree, I'd like to hear what you think.

cmer 16y ago
It's just business. They'll do what it takes to get new users and to keep them. The reason they will be giving away @facebook.com email addresses is the same reason why my mother in law won't get off AOL. She doesn't want to lose her email address.
- TallGuyShort 16y ago
  Yeah - I get that, but unless I've just been spared from the darker side of business, I've never worked for a company that would have called something "The X Killer" internally. People are aware of their competitors and what they need to do to beat them, but it seems like an unusual focus to focus on "killing" someone else product than coming up with something customers want even more.

gonzo 16y ago

Facebook is the new AOL

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago

Zuckerberg is absolutely the man I want to trust with my e-mail.

notyourwork 16y ago
Dare this not be sarcasm?
- Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
  Sarcasm? The word isn't even in my dictionary. Actually looking at it the whole section from marmalade to turbot appears to be missing. (With thanks to Douglas Adams for the joke).
jobu 16y ago
Obvious sarcasm, and I agree. Facebook has become synonymous with insecurity, poor privacy, and scams. Why anyone would trust them with personal info is beyond me. It's not that I completely trust google either, but they do seem to have a better track record of having their users interests in mind.
sasidharm 16y ago
If you already trust Google with your email, then it cant be that bad.
- sorbus 16y ago
  Google doesn't have a tendency to change their privacy policy and intentionally release private information, while Facebook does. [EDIT: Changed "the" to "their," and "rules" to "policy," as this makes my sentence both look better and more accurate.]
  - alexgartrell 16y ago
    What about Buzz?

u48998 16y ago

Well, didn't they buy Drop.io? So obviously they're going after our emails. The interesting thing would be to see if they require people to adopt new email addresses or not

dinedal 16y ago

Something tells me that now I am going to get an email in my Gmail for every email that I get in my facemail telling me I have a new facemail.

swolchok 16y ago
This should actually mean I don't need to visit facebook.com anymore if there is indeed POP3 or IMAP access, because (presumably) they will send full messages to Titan rather than the current "you have a new message NOW CLICK ME", and POP3 access to Titan means that I can get Facebook messaging through GMail. The catch is probably going to be a lack of SMTP...

MortenK 16y ago

Wow, can't wait to see all my personal contact info publicly available after writing a merry christmas mail to auntlisa@facebook.com

zacharypinter 16y ago

Wasn't facebook's justification for not letting you export your friends' email adresses because they weren't an email application? Now that Facebook does email, will they allow an email export?

ary 16y ago

The sad thing is that facebook itself is already somewhat of a "Gmail killer." I have a ton of people that will only contact me through facebook. When I ask why they don't use email they usually don't have an answer. The ones that do mumble something about convenience.

owkaye 16y ago
I have NO ONE who prefers facebook to email. Then again I'm not a very social person online. I use the Internet primarily for research (self-education, it's like a huge free library on my desk) ... and for business, and business users certainly do not rely on facebook for online communication. I doubt they ever will.
smackfu 16y ago
The answer is usually "because I never check my email".

cyanbane 16y ago

How long till we see cellphones (not the purported FB phone) utilize just one source for your contacts? I just got a WP7 phone and had to merge all my contacts in from multiple sources, if instead MS just piggybacked off FB only, it would make things far easier for the end user. Also FB could claim "portability" to some degree (even if just with their partner MS)

randall 16y ago

Isn't this the definition of feature creep? Everything devolves till eventually it can check email. [someone more intelligent than me will find the source of that quote... I'm having a tough morning.]

tlrobinson 16y ago

I wonder if this has to do with the recent back-and-forth antics between Facebook and Google. It would make sense that Facebook wants a way for people to get their contacts out of Gmail...

didip 16y ago

Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. -- Jamie Zawinski

savrajsingh 16y ago

called it: http://twitter.com/#!/savraj/status/2138507508 http://twitter.com/#!/savraj/status/2138507508 :)

fjabre 16y ago

If Apple announces a new product, the world looks on with curiosity and awe. If Facebook announces a new product, the world looks on with scorn and distrust.

topek 16y ago

Does anyone else think, that this was the main reason behind the "GMail blocks import" story (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877845 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877845)?

JarekS 16y ago

Don't you guys think that it makes much more sense for Facebook to allow their users to hook up their email accounts (GMail, Hotmail etc.) via IMAP/POP and just be much better email interface with some extras? Facebook could give priority sorting (based on your social graph), instant identification (kind of Rapportive features), and really easy to use and powerful address book (your social graph).