
Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday - obilgic
http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/facebook-gmail-titan/
======
trotsky
If facebook can really deliver a rock solid web mail client, I think they will
really be a company to watch in the rest of 1996 and 1997. If they play their
cards right they may get snapped up by an industry powerhouse like yahoo or
excite@home for eight figures.

~~~
paraschopra
You have lots of upvotes, so what you are saying must be interesting. But I
can't seem to get it! Can anyone explain what's this about?

~~~
dotBen
back in that era all of the successful players - you know, the REALLY
successful players like Yahoo, Microsoft and Excite (!) had web-mail clients
that were basically startups they acquired.

It was only Google that really built a killer web-mail client from scratch in-
house.

~~~
mkramlich
and the Google client was made mostly by @paul Buchheit, who just left
Facebook for YC.

------
ajg1977
I will be really interested to see this, because as it stands Facebook's
messaging interface is barely any better than 2001's Hotmail (you do get a
pretty picture with address autocomplete though).

Going from where they are now to anywhere close to being a 'Gmail killer' is a
humongous step.

~~~
ssclafani
I heard that Zuckerberg locked Paul Buchheit in a closet and told him he
couldn't come out until he cloned Gmail.

~~~
iuguy
It's being put into 'The Social Network 2: Return of the Lawsuits' as I write.

~~~
fleitz
I hear their legal strategy is: "If you invented facemail you would have
invented facemail." followed by writing a cheque for a tenth of what they just
raised.

~~~
scorpion032
"In the scheme of things, it is a parking ticket" ;)

------
sp4rki
I've always thought that Facebook could make a real difference by becoming a
central hub to control your "persona" or identity so to speak. Facebook could
integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and users would not
require to input information (any more then their Facebook uri) to register
for anything.

Instead they're trying to undercut Google by keeping them out of the 'shared
data' agreement and now they're going into... e-mail and messaging? I'd rather
they work on improving Facebook Connect and give me a way to control my data
(and usable privacy controls while we're at it). I sure as hell don't want my
personal email (and even less any business or corporate email) going through
Facebook. Hell I have a hard time accepting Gmail, though it's so convenient I
compromise.

Lots of people say that Facebook won't go the way of MySpace. But you know
what? Lots of people said the same thing about MySpace too. Everyday I see or
hear more and more about people I know just not using their accounts anymore
and in some cases actually deleting them; even I don't get much value from it
either this days.

I think Facebook is losing direction and just trying to wow users with amazing
features that no one really needs. They need to focusing on making what they
have better, not adding features and avoiding integration with other services.

~~~
copper
> Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and
> users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook
> uri) to register for anything.

Facebook has done exactly this, and there's been quite a bit of backlash, with
some discussion on this site itself.

~~~
sp4rki
Facebook Connect has a long way from being the "identity manager" I speak of,
and it's integration with applications as it is now leaves a lot to be
desired. There has been backslash because 1) it's a mediocre implementation
and 2) the lack of openness on behalf of Facebook and their methods are not in
the best interest of either the users or the applications that could use this
system.

Facebook could have become the central hub in which you can manage your
identity (in an open way of course). Facebook could allow you to easily do
anything on the web with fewer clicks by means of integration with other
sevices. Instead they rather have you locked in to using their services and
implementations and that is what I don't agree on. I wished it followed what I
want, but whatever they do I wish it was adding value to the experience
instead of just creating a more locked in ecosystem.

------
rkwz
I think Facebook has much much bigger goals than silly gmail killing. It's
trying to become _the internet_ for all those who don't know the difference
between a browser, web site and the internet. Offering email services is just
a small step in that direction.

~~~
krschultz
A lot of people compare Facebook to MySpace, but isn't AOL also a good
comparison?

Remember all the companies that were AOL keywords. Now they have Facebook
pages. AOL has a messenger, now Facebook does. It just strikes me as AOL for
the 21st century.

~~~
gonzo
I actually got to pose the question (live and in-person), "Isn't Facebook the
new AOL?" to Steve Case last week.

~~~
chopsueyar
"Actually, it reminds me of Prodigy." - Steve Case

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_%28online_service%29>

------
Tyrannosaurs
Zuckerberg is absolutely the man I want to trust with my e-mail.

~~~
sasidharm
If you already trust Google with your email, then it cant be that bad.

~~~
sorbus
Google doesn't have a tendency to change their privacy policy and
intentionally release private information, while Facebook does.

[EDIT: Changed "the" to "their," and "rules" to "policy," as this makes my
sentence both look better and more accurate.]

~~~
alexgartrell
What about Buzz?

~~~
sorbus
My understanding of that was that the individual in question (was there more
than one person?) clicked through confirmation screens without looking at
them, assuming that everything would be okay. It is not Google's fault when
users are idiots.

However, I may be wrong; I only recall one instance of this happening with
Buzz, and may simply have missed other ones.

Other times when google violated privacy which I remember: 1) Accidentally
logging packets, which they then told people about and found a good way to
delete, instead of just pretending it didn't happen. 2) Releasing emails (and
other information?) to governments when required to do so by law, which I
consider a valid excuse.

~~~
sasidharm
Google is not evil by nature (though i have my own doubts) and Facebook is
also not evil by nature. Facebook simply has a different philosophy on
_sharing_. They believe that people should share everything and be more
social. If this is not something people are not comfortable with, then those
people have no business in signing up for facebook and complaining that
everything is shared by default. As far as Google's privacy 'glitches' are
concerned, in my experience bugs make it into production accidentally. But
pieces of code that are developed specifically to sample wifi packets that
might contain sensitive data or code that exposes all my email contacts to the
entire world do not make into production accidentally.

~~~
beagle3
Both are semi-evil towards end-users by virtue of these end-users being the
product, rather than the customers they imagine themselves to be.

Google tries to reach the unevil side, by giving you as full control of your
data as they can, and not cross over the creepy line (although they are always
near it).

Facebook doesn't, and therefore finds itself on the evil side almost all the
time. It's not that they want to be evil that makes them evil; It's just that
not avoiding becoming evil makes them that way, and they do not try to avoid
it in any way. (Plus, evil is more lucrative).

------
gojomo
If @facebook.com email addresses have a stronger link to real, non-spammy,
non-mass-produced identities than other domains, they could become preferred
at many other sites -- a broader version of Facebook Connect.

~~~
michaelhart
Wrong -- your FB email address will likely have the same prefix as your vanity
URL. Guess that that means? Spam bots know your email address already.

~~~
TomasSedovic
I think he means it the other way: e-mail addresses ending with facebook.com
could signal "this is a genuine person, not a spammer".

~~~
eliben
Have you encountered many spammers with @gmail.com addresses?

~~~
drgath
Yes

------
michaelhart
The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to
even make a dent in people's minds. And as others have pointed out,
Facebook.com is not associated with professionalism (unless you're a recruiter
or tech blogger or something).

All in all, I think nobody will care at the end of the day.

~~~
davidedicillo
> The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to
> even make a dent in people's minds

I guarantee you that they are going to become the default address between
people 16 and under. My brother is 16 and doesn't have an email address, but
he does have a facebook account.

~~~
ericflo
That's the scariest thing I've read so far today.

~~~
slyn
1: My daughter just moved into her own house today. 2: Wow, awesome! I should
call them to congratulate her! Whats the new house number? 1: Oh, she doesn't
have a landline, she just uses her cell phone. 2: That's the scariest thing
I've heard so far today. 1: ???...

To the newest generations email is an antiquated technology that has no real
use among their peers. Eventually they might get some email address for
college/professional use, but that's practically akin to a fresh college grad
now getting a fax machine because "its what we use at the office".

Not shocking.

Edit: Unless by "the scariest thing" you mean the idea of xyz@facebook.com
becoming the default for the >17 crowd, in which case, disregard my nonsense.

~~~
NZ_Matt
This is very true. I'm 20 and I've never used my personal email regularly and
I'm sure most of my friends haven't either. We've always used MSN or AIM and
more recently Facebook to keep in touch.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I'm in my 40s and get more Facebook messages from my friends than I do emails.
Many more.

~~~
mistermann
I hadn't thought about it before, but same for me. The only friends who
contact me through email are other programmers.

------
didip
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which
cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

\-- Jamie Zawinski

------
zacharypinter
Wasn't facebook's justification for not letting you export your friends' email
adresses because they weren't an email application? Now that Facebook does
email, will they allow an email export?

------
ary
The sad thing is that facebook itself is already somewhat of a "Gmail killer."
I have a ton of people that will only contact me through facebook. When I ask
why they don't use email they usually don't have an answer. The ones that do
mumble something about convenience.

~~~
owkaye
I have NO ONE who prefers facebook to email. Then again I'm not a very social
person online. I use the Internet primarily for research (self-education, it's
like a huge free library on my desk) ... and for business, and business users
certainly do not rely on facebook for online communication. I doubt they ever
will.

------
JonnieCache
I see this as a good thing. As others have mentioned here, FB messaging is
more popular than email for a lot of people. This means I'll be able to
communicate effectively with my friends who check their FB an order of
magnitude more than their email (almost all of them,) using SMTP in any way
that I choose rather than having to log into FB with all its attendant
awfulness.

How does this news represent anything other than FB rewriting its
inbox/messaging tool to operate over SMTP/IMAP? And how can that be anything
but good? Okay we all wish they'd used the Wave Federation Protocol, but we
can't have everything we want.

------
pshapiro
Personally I really don't want my email visible to Facebook. What would they
do with my information? Google already set the precedent for leveraging email
data _somehow_. If so, Facebook will probably push the boundaries while
carefully marketing it so that users accept something they would not have just
previously. I only have a problem with this because they're profiting from
data that users would not have allowed them to sell to advertisers if they had
known about the terms when signing up. So it's like a bait and switch and that
makes me distrust them.

------
tafle
I think an interesting case here that will be affected here is how social
circles were dealing that one stubborn Facebook holdout.

Before, there were two choices. Either move communication to email, or leave
them out of the loop. Now the choice is easy, and it will all happen within
Facebook.

------
d_r
Aside from the merits of this story, has anything that was branded "killer" by
the media actually ended up being even moderately successful?

(The various iPhone killers, Facebook killers, Google killers, and so on come
to mind...)

~~~
khafra
Presumably TechCrunch feels some affection for Google, and has decided to give
facemail the tech-journalism kiss of death.

------
iuguy
Does anyone have any decent info on which free mail service is the most
popular? I know a fair amount of people use any mixture of hotmail, gmail and
yahoo. Perhaps 'killing gmail' isn't as big as killing
hotmail/live/badabingmail.

~~~
allbutlost
Fairly recent [1] stats seem to point to:

    
    
      hotmail:  360m+ active accounts
      yahoo:    275m+ active accounts
      Gmail in 3rd, followed by AOL webmail [2}
    

Although yahoo! mail seems to have a more active user base as it's ahead on
most site ranking systems [3].

Sources: [1] [http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-
statist...](http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-
statistics.htm) [2] [http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol-
email...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol-email-in-the-
us-to-take-no-3-spot/) [3]
[http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.ht...](http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.html)

~~~
treblig
This is wild. When Facebook flips the switch, they'll instantly become the
largest email service.

~~~
jonknee
They'll actually have to get people to use it before being large (the whole
"active" part). I'll never use it and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

------
jscore
I closed my account few months ago, does this mean I will miss the revolution?

------
randall
Isn't this the definition of feature creep?

Everything devolves till eventually it can check email. [someone more
intelligent than me will find the source of that quote... I'm having a tough
morning.]

------
Supermighty
The killer aspect of any facebook email project is that your friends are
automatically white listed and in your address book.

------
dinedal
Something tells me that now I am going to get an email in my Gmail for every
email that I get in my facemail telling me I have a new facemail.

~~~
swolchok
This should actually mean I don't need to visit facebook.com anymore if there
is indeed POP3 or IMAP access, because (presumably) they will send full
messages to Titan rather than the current "you have a new message NOW CLICK
ME", and POP3 access to Titan means that I can get Facebook messaging through
GMail.

The catch is probably going to be a lack of SMTP...

------
fjabre
If Apple announces a new product, the world looks on with curiosity and awe.

If Facebook announces a new product, the world looks on with scorn and
distrust.

------
cyanbane
How long till we see cellphones (not the purported FB phone) utilize just one
source for your contacts? I just got a WP7 phone and had to merge all my
contacts in from multiple sources, if instead MS just piggybacked off FB only,
it would make things far easier for the end user. Also FB could claim
"portability" to some degree (even if just with their partner MS)

------
asknemo
Even if the thing turns out to be unbelievably amazing, I doubt companies
would like people to be constantly logged in to facebook "for mail" during
work. For many offices, a browser tab on facebook could just imply chit-chat
with friends, farmville, and many other unproductive pursuits. How could it be
a "Gmail Killer" with such a born defect?

~~~
enqk
aren't iphones the gateway from work to facebook?

------
Estragon
Are there any for-pay gmail-like mail services out there offered by companies
who aren't trying to make money by selling their users to their advertisers?

I use gnus at the moment, but it's starting to feel a bit long in the tooth.
On the other hand, the thought of having all my email in a marketer's database
kind of squicks me.

~~~
smiler
Google apps premier. No advertising

------
gsivil
it seems convenient within Facebook but I would not like using a @facebook.com
email address for serious communication. Imagine applying for college with
such an address.

~~~
samfoo
Is @gmail.com somehow more distinguished?

~~~
sliverstorm
@gmail.com is no @jdoe.net, but imho it's probably one of the most respectable
free email domains.

~~~
pca
Hi, one quick question: If you use @jdoe.net because it looks more
professional, what would you use for the local part of the address? Does e.g.
contact@jdoe.net look better than jdoe@gmail.com? I'm thinking when used for
job applications and such.

~~~
ben1040
john@jdoe.net is what I'd use, or if you have an uncommon last name like me
and it's available as a domain name, john@doe.net and a blog at john.doe.net.

------
darklajid
I usually try to stop myself being overly protective of privacy. But - I
already thought about leaving GMail several times to make sure that I don't
rely on a big company that knows a lot about me.

Now Facebook, that would be an alternative. Uhm - wait a minute!

I do think they're going to pull this off though. Lots of people I know are
still (happily) using the "older" services around, local free email providers,
hotmail, whatever. A sexy webmail client, promoted by the site they use
heavily? Sounds like a dealbreaker. Lots of non-technical people don't know
Google as something other than a field to type searches into (or even rely on
the browser search fields). Facebook could "educate" those to switch quite
easily, I guess, given a good marketing strategy and some neat "integrate your
mails with your status updates" features.

Ugh..

------
jhrobert
If Twitter is smart they will provide the smart ultra cheap fast answer:
mailto:username@twitter.com with automatic forwarding to your actual email
(that they know of already).

No brainer.

I hope that facebook users will use their twitter name to setup their facebook
email adress, ie: use it as a very public address.

@jhr

------
JarekS
Don't you guys think that it makes much more sense for Facebook to allow their
users to hook up their email accounts (GMail, Hotmail etc.) via IMAP/POP and
just be much better email interface with some extras?

Facebook could give priority sorting (based on your social graph), instant
identification (kind of Rapportive features), and really easy to use and
powerful address book (your social graph).

------
DjDarkman
Now Facebook will have no excuse not to allow exporting of friends email
address... well they will probably think of something else.

I doubt they could kill GMail, if there is one thing Google is good at is,
fast and efficient interfaces, it may not be pretty, but who cares, it's an
email client.

------
topek
Does anyone else think, that this was the main reason behind the "GMail blocks
import" story (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877845>)?

------
maheshs
Google try to integrate social network with gmail (buzz) and failed. Now
facebook is trying to integrate social network with mail and result would be
fail IMHO.

Mail and "social networks" are different need.

------
tlrobinson
I wonder if this has to do with the recent back-and-forth antics between
Facebook and Google. It would make sense that Facebook wants a way for people
to get their contacts out of Gmail...

------
shuaib
O no, please! Why do they all have to turn into I-completely-want-to-own-your-
Internet-life giants? Isn't doing one thing good enough, enough? Who needs yet
another email service provider?

------
zecg
Another address people will just forward to their gmail. The article claims
facebook has "the most popular photos product"... it may be true, but their
"photos product" is shit.

------
gonzo
Facebook is the new AOL

------
yread
Well for me Gmail's killer is the build 1060 of Opera 11

------
savrajsingh
called it: <http://twitter.com/#!/savraj/status/2138507508> :)

------
MortenK
Wow, can't wait to see all my personal contact info publicly available after
writing a merry christmas mail to auntlisa@facebook.com

------
resdirector
"Killer"?

Hard to make an email killer. Hotmail, for instance, is still incredibly
popular, and will continue to be.

------
obilgic
I was thinking about this when they launched username system, without knowing
rumors about that.

~~~
drgath
You and everyone else.

------
RtodaAV
I don't have a facebook account but idk about this. Will users get another
username for their email address or use their vanity usernames? The under 18
crowd will use it because like another poster brought up, my brother also
doesn't have a email address. He tried using mine.

------
u48998
Well, didn't they buy Drop.io? So obviously they're going after our emails.
The interesting thing would be to see if they require people to adopt new
email addresses or not

------
revoltingx
Social networking is lame.

------
TallGuyShort
Maybe I'm biased by having seen The Social Network, but does anyone else get
the feeling that Facebook is motivated by hurting other people? I mean, when
Google was starting to get big, it seemed like they were driven by their own
creativity, by their drive to be awesome. But Facebook just always exudes this
attitude of jealousy.

edit: Any of the downvoters care to explain? It's an honest question about two
different companies - if you disagree, I'd like to hear what you think.

~~~
cmer
It's just business. They'll do what it takes to get new users and to keep
them. The reason they will be giving away @facebook.com email addresses is the
same reason why my mother in law won't get off AOL. She doesn't want to lose
her email address.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Yeah - I get that, but unless I've just been spared from the darker side of
business, I've never worked for a company that would have called something
"The X Killer" internally. People are aware of their competitors and what they
need to do to beat them, but it seems like an unusual focus to focus on
"killing" someone else product than coming up with something customers want
even more.

