Facebook To Launch Email Service Today

Unofficially termed as Gmail killer, the email service will give users an address as username@facebook.com.

Dilpreet Kaur | Delhi | November 15, 2010

Social networking site Facebook is all set for a head on with the world's largest email service Gmail. It is likely to offer e-mail services to its 500 million users from today to compete with Gmail and Yahoomail, making it the largest such service provider on the planet.

Unofficially termed as Gmail killer, the email service will give users an address as username@facebook.com. According to TechCrunch, a leading Silicon Valley technology blog, an announcement in this regard is expected in Facebook's special event in San Francisco today.

It is expected to be more than just a UI refresh for Facebook's existing messaging service with POP access tacked on. Rather, Facebook is building a full-fledged webmail client.

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 there's also the social element: Facebook knows who your friends are and how closely you're connected to them; it can probably do a pretty good job figuring out which personal emails you want to read most and prioritize them accordingly.

Meanwhile, during the 3-day Web 2.0 conference that kicks off Monday, there are many special events on the card where on Tuesday; Yahoo Inc CEO Carol Bartz may clarify the speculations over takeover by private equity firms, possibly in coordination with AOL Inc or News Corp.

And investors hoping for an eventual wave of initial public offerings by a new generation of fast-growing Web start-ups will keep an eye on appearances by executives from Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn.

Dilpreet.Kaur@BestMediaInfo.com

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