“Gmail Killer” to be Launched by Facebook

Google is probably looking behind their back right now, since Facebook has launched an email assault to Gmail services. At the Facebook offices in Palo Alto, California, they released a messaging service specifically designed to compete against Google Gmail. Inside the company, the service is allegedly referred to as the “Gmail killer”.

But look beyond simple email service, reports Facebook president Mark Zuckerberg. They don't believe that the most modern messaging service will be email. He explains that Facebook's new service is more closely modeled after a chat client than it is after an email client. He feels that emails are not in real time, which is what messaging needs to be, to compete today. Zuckerberg further explains that email doesn't have to be sent at light speed, but he points out the time difference in texting and IM-ing on cell phones as compared to emails.

The new email service will use “@facebook.com” as its address, but it's meant to do more than just compete with Gmail. It will also offer three other services not normally affiliated with email – those being a “social inbox”, for friends' messages, a conversation history across the various platforms and seamless messaging through various platforms, to include texting and SMS. As Andrew Bozworth, product manager, states, people should be able to share however they want.

The new email service will allow attachments, and can connect disparate messages sent from all the ways they are sent, whether that be from their phone, laptop or PC. This is accomplished with the use of a software that routes all this data into your Facebook inbox. The team working on this program is the largest engineering team ever assembled by Facebook, according to Bozworth.

In the meantime, Google and Facebook fight for the domination of the Internet world, while AOL, the original email titan, is actually seeing the light of day once more. Since it merged with Time Warner, AOL is attempting to re-ignite its user base and reputation with something they call “Project Phoenix”. This includes the overhaul of their email service online, to keep up with the newer email service providers. Phoenix isn't expected to fully launch until sometime in 2011, but they have a beta test available for a few of their webmail users now.

In the same manner, the new message service from Facebook won't be rolled out right away. They will begin with a group of users used to beta the system. Zuckerburg doesn't feel that there will be a great rush for “@facebook.com” email addresses.