The Gmail Killer

Facebook is preparing to come out with a new email service, where users can get email sent to an email address @facebook.com. There were a number of headlines that advertised this as "the Gmail killer", though it could just as easily be "the Hotmail killer" or "the Yahoo! Mail killer".

First, Facebook started to try to be your "one true login". They seem to be succeeding in this, because a number of sites have started to give you the option to sign in using Facebook instead of creating an account. For example, here are some random sites that came up when I Googled "Facebook Connect":

Evony
Joost
SurveyMonkey
TravelPod

Facebook even has taken so much of Myspace's market that they are introducing a "connect with Facebook" option. That's the ultimate admission on Myspace's part that Facebook has won the war.

Facebook has succeeded there, so they are looking to expand. The next horizon seems to be Facebook email, which they've announced plans to implement. Facebook's CEO says that this email will be even better because they know who your friends are. No, really.

"Because we know who your friends are," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, "we can do some really good filtering for you."

There is something a little creepy about that, but I do think this idea will take off. The interesting part is this: back in the early 2000's, sites like AOL had email and chat services, and tried to expand in to profiles...same with Yahoo! and MSN. None of those transitions worked well. However, Facebook starting with profiles and expanding to chat and then email might actually work.

So, Facebook vs. Google...who wins? Time will tell.

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