The blogging world is abuzz with rumors of Facebook’s supposed “Project Titan,” a full email client for Facebook that will create hundreds of millions of new email addresses for the Facebook masses.
Let me say this as emphatically as possible: I do not want a Facebook email address. I refuse to even use Facebook messaging. Having email tied to Facebook would merely turn an already over-featured, bloated, and slow social networking Frankenstein of an experience into one that I actually depend on to get work done. God forbid.
Facebook for many is becoming the very central hub of their internet experience, which is exactly what Facebook has planned for. With the slow incorporation of all your web activity into your Facebook feed, the company is trying to become the nexus of what you do online and who you interact with. A brilliant move. Soon most Facebook users will be paralyzed without their Facebook accounts.
That makes me wary from the outset.
Facebook has a specific purpose: social networking. Email is not designed for that. Some people use it for that, and we came up with a name for them sometime ago: spammers. Real question for everyone with a job, how many times a day do you check your email compared to your Facebook? Second question, how much overlap is there between the two actions?
If I am guessing correctly, you check your email much more often than Facebook. Why? You get more value out of it. Back to the concept of paralysis we just touched one, which would hurt more: losing your email for a week, or Facebook?
By combining the two, and giving you a childish @Facebook.com, Facebook will tie you even tighter to the Facebook totem, leaving you even more at their mercy. I’m out.
If Facebook does this, will it change the landscape of webmail? Of course it will. What Facebook probably will not do is follow an open route, despite Arrington’s notes to the contrary. Instead it is probably more likely to do what MySpace did, and break their webmail client by not offering IMAP or POP support. What advantage would it give them to make it open? Why not draw the wagons into an even tighter circle around their users?
A defeatured email client tied to a giant time sink and Farmville? Great. This is a big case of “just because you can does not mean that doing so will make anything better”.
As a final thought, are they really going to build a “Gmail killer?” As a small rule of thumb that I have, if it is called a “xxx killer,” it won’t be. Facebook has built a product that scratched a gigantic nerve around the world. Email is just something that is non-core enough as to make it at best an odd move.
Is Facebook becoming the next AOL or Yahoo, offering a Smörgåsbord of offerings that are a bit disjointed?
Agree with you. No thanks!
Please, tell me that the general masses aren't going to LOVE fB email? #somebodystopthem ugh!
Nice article.
Just want to add something: There should be quite a few people who check Facebook more often than their email accounts, I guess :D
Serious professional people that do? More time to dither than to work?
:(
I TOTALLY agree! I admin facebook for a non-profit arts and the new changes have given me migranes, it's even harder to get our info on our fan's feeds. This juggernaut is turning into the Titanic and the iceberg is the e-mail, I may be ready to book if it keeps up….
I TOTALLY agree! I admin facebook for a non-profit arts and the new changes have given me migranes, it's even harder to get our info on our fan's feeds. This juggernaut is turning into the Titanic and the iceberg is the e-mail, I may be ready to book if it keeps up….
A few years back, I became CTO of a social networking site that had tried to do email. It was an unmitigated disaster, both in concept and in execution. Bad idea from start to finish. So I concur.
That said: the teens I know DO use Facebook as their email, already today. I get a much faster read/response rate from my teen kids when I leave them a message on Facebook than when I send them email.
Totally agree. When Google entered into email market, there was a significant need for an enhancement. Not sure what type of “advanced features” Facebook is thinking of introducing to their email feature, but it would be great if they can focus their attention on improving the core social networking part of their site.
But who knows, they have a plenty of intelligent people and they might invent ways to bridge whatever gap between email and social network.
Probably not!
“Having email tied to Facebook would merely turn an already over-featured, bloated, and slow social networking Frankenstein”
could not agree more, when this whole epidemic started I never would have guessed something so slow and cumbersome could have evolved into this beast. Now email you say, someone save us, be afraid….be very afraid!!!
I already feel like I have a primary relationship with my computer instead of real people at times. That would only make it worse… I prefer if an ap like FB has a specific purpose for which I use it, rather than it becoming vanilla, or catch all or one stop for everything. It would lose its uniqueness, that which differentiates it. The only reason I use it now, is it IS different. I hope FB does not over-integrate or over-diversify its capabilities. It would be like a sundae with everything on it, covered with toppings, you can't even find the ice cream. Its all about the ice cream, not that other stuff :) ice cream with too much stuff on it makes me nauseous. Toppings should complement the flavor of the ice cream not overpower it so you don't even recognize it anymore. Is it ice cream or gelato or yogurt or sherbert or mousse or pudding? Bottom line is I have too many email accounts to follow now. At some point you reach a max on how many usernames and passwords you can remember.
Yes, younger people will be first time email users. We signed up for yahoo, hotmail and gmail accounts in earlier days, they now might first sign up for a social community before having an email address. And then why not offer them this service instead of losing them to Google and others? It makes sense to me. We are not their primary target group, too old ;-)
Sorry to say this is totally crap.
It'll be a total success.
I am a teen and I already hate the messaging thats on Facebook now. I let the message just site there because I get them in my E-mail anyway. And most times its, “hey whats up?” Which I don't reply to or even delete until 3 weeks later. Having and @facebook.com E-mail adress, I think, would really make a person look unprofessional. I do agree with them becoming the AOL with the services that aren't really going anywhere.
I'd wager that the majority of the 350+million people on Facebook include people who are YEARS away from being “serious professional people,” and that by the time they get to that stage, any stigma of using Facebook as some sort of central hug rather than something “serious” will be long gone, if it isn't already.
Also, you think that a company that lets people make apps that access their site pretty robustly is going to lock down their e-mail client just because? Do they prevent their Facebook chat from being accessed via chat clients the world over?
A profitable company with upwards of 400 million active users means they “aren't really going anywhere?”
I wouldn't change my gmail easily but i think you're over reacting a bit here. btw facebook is hardly used as a social networking solution any more, its more like a promotion tool.
well I would glad to have one,they say that it uses our vanity URL right? so it would be interesting to be able to use it as my own email address then. :-)
Lool thats because we sign up for alot of stuff and we always get spammers and useless shit in our email inbox.
and what is so wrong with facebook email? nothin!
you haters can ignore it if you dont like it, but for the rest of us who want it, please dont fuck it up.
And what is so wrong with facebook email? nothing!
you haters can ignore it if you dont like it, but please dont fuck it up for the rest of us who want it.
oops didnt mean to post twice, i thought my first one didnt work.
i really hope someone can help me i pam haarper went to sign in to my facebook and it says been disabled and i dont understand i am trying to locate my family on here and this comes up please email me if anyone can help me please thank you so very much pam harper spider_0000@hotmail.com
“xxx killer”? Does that mean that Facebook emails are going to kill porn?
“xxx killer”? Does that mean that Facebook emails are going to kill porn?
my account been disabled and dont know why all i am trying to do is find my family god bless spider_0000@hotmail.com
If by “serious” you mean professionals who use typewriters and wear bowties, then probably not. However, if you mean tech-savvy, forward-thinking individuals with a viable product to promote, then yes.
“There is no avant-garde only those who have been left behind.”
Facebook killed email a long time ago (they blogged about it on 20 August 2007). For the past three years, I've used gmail only to chat and pay bills. I don't understand the reason Facebook wants to bring email back, but I have noticed that Facebook has been dumbing itself down the past several months (no doubt because its median intelligence level has dropped since the masses have joined).
What nonsense. I bet you want the “old” layout back too. The people who complain about Facebook are people who don't know how to use it properly. Hello turn your email notifications off.
FYI: incorrect spelling, punctuation, and sentences that make little sense are viewed as very unprofessional.
Actually sir, you don't know what I like. I actually do like the new theme. And who said I was complaining about Facebook. I love it. It has some great tools for everyone to use. And I do know how to use it properly. In my post, I have said nothing about about the E-mail notifications. I talked about the messaging feature which I don't use. I like the E-mail notifications because, I can easily reply back instead of having to go to the site.
FYI: I am almost positive that everyone makes mistake in there spelling and such. I don't have a personal assistant sitting over my shoulder, like you may have.
So thank you for you input that absolutely made no sense and had nothing to do with my views.
if facebook makes a free email, i will take one.
fauna@chinasmack.com
Agree with you. I would say we (you, I, etc) won’t be using it. In my case for eg use my acct both for work and personal emails (despite having more than 1 adress I see them in Gmail).
But for ‘everyday joe’ that checks his email at night to see lolcats or teenagers FB MAIL is a perfect fit. More: most people have a work mail and a personal mail. I see many of them using the personal @facebook mail.
Would add a detail here though: I truly doubt the emails will be @facebook.com. At least I wouldn’t release emails @facebook.com if I owned facebook :)
Cheers
successfull