As Google and Facebook duke it out on data portability, the social-networking giant may be planning a Gmail killer. Rumors abound that Facebook is planning to launch an e-mail service on Monday.
Facebook couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. But Facebook has confirmed that it is planning to invest $450 million in a new data center in North Carolina. With more than 500 million users, the need for a new data center is clear with or without an e-mail service. But rolling out more communications tools for Facebookers would certainly demand this investment.
But does a Facebook-hosted e-mail service makes sense in the age of Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and many others? Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, thinks a Facebook-branded e-mail offering would be appealing to many people. The devil, however, may be in the details.
“It also makes sense for Facebook to do this, given it’s role as a communications platform. Whether it was widely adopted would depend on how it worked and what features it offered,” Sterling said. “Hotmail and Yahoo Mail would be most directly threatened by such an offering — again, if it’s well constructed and executed.”
Unveiling Project Titan
News reports speculate that Facebook’s Project Titan will offer web-based e-mail that will work within its social-networking software. That would make possible a Facebook.com e-mail address for its 500 million-plus users. If even half of Facebook’s members adopted the address, it would give the social-networking giant a healthy user base out of the gate.
What is known is that Facebook has scheduled a press event in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday and heavily hinted that the announcement deals in messaging. If true, Facebook would be taking the opposite approach of its competitors. While Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo have worked to integrate social networking into web-based e-mail, Facebook would…