Are you a Gmail user? Or a Facebook fanatic? Take note, Facebook is expected to launch a new messaging system which is seen as a challenge to Google’s Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. The giant social network – which recently notched up an incredible more than 500 million users worldwide – held a special event in San Francisco on Monday.
BBC reported the new initiative and said, “Unconfirmed reports suggest Facebook could announce its own e-mail address – @facebook.com – or a fully-fledged web-based e-mail system”.
Facebook eyes mobile domination
The Google-Facebook rivalry has been hotting up in recent times and Google has banned Facebook from importing its users’ e-mail contacts, a move it says it made because Facebook refused to allow the export of contact and friend data from within user profiles.
Facebook enabled a workaround that let users save their Google contacts to their computers before importing them into Facebook.
According to a report on tech blog Techcrunch, Facebook’s new venture – codenamed Project Titan – is being dubbed a “Gmail killer”. The report comments on how Facebook is well placed to expand into the e-mail arena: “Facebook knows who your friends are and how closely you’re connected to them; it can probably do a pretty good job figuring out which personal emails you want to read most and prioritise them accordingly.”