Facebook launches Email service

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said last night email would go the way of the letter because it is too slow and informal.

The 26-year-old made the claim as he launched the social networking site's new messaging service, which integrates all web and text-based communications and works instantaneously.

The service, perceived as a direct rival to Google's Gmail, marks a new front in the ongoing and increasingly bitter battle between Facebook and Google to gain the loyalty of users.

Domination: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg talks about the new messaging service rumoured to be a 'Gmail-killer'

Mr Zuckerberg revealed that, as rumoured, the 500million people signed up to Facebook will have access to a ‘Facebook.com’ email address.

Entire conversation histories going back years will also be saved into users’ accounts and Spam will be completely filtered out, he claimed.

'We don’t think that a modern messaging system is going to be email,'
Zuckerberg said at a press conference in San Francisco.

'We want people to be able to communicate in whatever way they choose: email, text or Facebook message.'

Speculation had been mounting that Facebook’s email account would be a ‘Gmail Killer’, in reference to Google’s successful email service

Facebook’s new email system is modelled on instant messaging and on-line chat and will allow people to simplify their communications regardless of how they choose to do it.

Texts, email or instant messages will all come into one ‘feed’ and users can respond in any way they want.

One person could text a friend, for example, who will see the message come up on their Facebook page instantly and respond via an instant message or email.

Battling Google: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, pictured earlier this year, has launched a new messaging service which could rival Google's Gmail

Mr Zuckerberg said that he was changing Facebook because young people found email was too much of a ‘cognitive load’.

He said of the new programme: ‘It’s not email. It handles email... along with all the different ways you want to communicate.

'It’s true people are going to be able to have Facebook.com email addresses but this is not email. Email is one way people are going to use this system, but we don’t even think it’s going to be the primary way.

‘The goal of this product is to make it that we can seamlessly integrate across all of these different products very easily.’

Facebook's director of engineering Andrew Bosworth said that, over the course of time, users could look back on their relationships with friends going back years in a modern-day version of keeping letters in a box.

The changes will be rolled out over the coming months on an invite-only basis before being offered to all users worldwide.

Commenting on the launch, Eden Zoller, principal analyst at Ovum, said: 'An email service from Facebook makes a lot of sense. 

'It has a huge base of 500 million users that already love to communicate and share, and Facebook is giving them richer ways to do this through virtual gifts, games, location and even voice thanks to the recent integration deal with Skype.

'Adding email to the mix is a logical step and Facebook could tap into user data to provide an attractive, highly personalised service. You would also expect it to push mobile features given its big move in this direction. '

Ease of access: Facebook aims to integrate text, web and email services for its 500million users

The move will certainly alarm Facebook's nearest rivals such as Yahoo and Google.

In recent months the relationship between Facebook and Google has become increasingly fraught amid the poaching of staff and efforts to throw up barricades to prevent users from easily shifting information, such as email contact lists, between the two platforms.

The changes to Facebook have been under development for more than a year and will be rolled out over the forthcoming months on an invite-only basis before going worldwide.

Last week, Google began blocking a Facebook feature that allows users to automatically import Gmail contact data into the social networking service.

Google accused Facebook of siphoning up Google data without allowing for the automatic import and export of Facebook users' information.

They are also increasingly vying for engineering talent in Silicon Valley. This week, Google internally announced plans to boost salaries by 10 per cent, according to media reports, in a move viewed as an effort to staunch an exodus of engineers and managers to Facebook.

Google has banned Facebook from importing its users' email contacts, a move it says it made because Facebook refused to allow the export of contact and friend data from within user profiles.

A new style of messaging: Mark Zuckerberg unveils Facebook's newest feature in San Francisco

The expected announcement by Facebook comes as former internet big-hitter AOL is opening the doors to its new web-based email program, code-named Project Phoenix, for a limited number of users. Starting next year, anyone will be able to sign up for access to a beta test site.

The Project Phoenix inbox page was designed to make it easier to fire off a quick email, text or instant message with just a few clicks on a ‘quick bar’ at the top of the page.

People can also send short replies directly from the inbox page, without having to click on a message first. The new design displays thumbnails of recent photo attachments at a glance, and lets people toggle between several open emails at a time.