Facebook has had the ability to give you a facebook.com/you domain for a lonish time now. With that, you could also get a Facebook email address (you@facebook.com). Now if someone who is not on Facebook emails you to that address, the message will still be picked up and you can reply to it, send attachments etc.
Facebook has over 800 million members on the social network which is one of the most visited websites on the interweb. Because it has so much power and control, Facebook can integrate several tools to help you better manage you life and maybe drive you away from the services that you may be using to date.
Google has done something similar to this; everyone used Google for search over a decade ago then they began buying different services like Blogger and inventing services like GMail and Google Apps. Then they moved on to control even more of the web buy developing the Chrome web browser.
I use Google for almost everything:
- Calendar
- Documents
- Blogger
- Search
- Web Browser
- Adsense
- Google Plus
- YouTube
- Android Phone
- Maps
- Images
- Picasa
That is only the services that I use. Look at Google's homepage to get a full list!
Anyway, will Facebook replace email? I think it will to a certain degree. I think Facebook email is more of a "messaging system" rather than a fully fledged email service. It is really good and fast for sending little short messages of 140 characters or less, but for someone to send me a whole blog article via a Facebook messagwe?! I think I would faint.
That, for me, is worse than sending a 1080p Full HD Video attachment on a really slow 3G connection!
Well... okay. Maybe not, but it is something that should be done using a real email client like GMail or Yahoo!
So for me, Facebook will not replace email any time in the near future.
Comments Welcome.
