Facebook's Email (Don't Call it Email) Technology Has Google Nervous

On Monday Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg held a meeting to announce that Facebook's messaging technology was going to be changing, however don't you dare call it email. Facebook's complete overhaul of its new email platform looks like email, functions like email, and is a direct threat to Google and Microsofts email platforms, but don't call it email just yet. In another "look at us we just changed the world once again" type of moves," Zuckerberg and company said that the new Facebook Messages isn't email, but just might be replacing it.

Unlike traditional email, the new Facebook Messages will be composed of several different means of communication. It incorporates emails, messages, chat, and SMS. There will be no subject lines or the ability to CC someone else. Facebook Messages will also revolve around you and your friends. Facebook is hoping to combat spam messages by giving a user the ability to opt out of receiving unwanted messages from people they don't know. The new Messages will also be smarter and more agile. A user might receive a message via their phone, the Facebook inbox, or via chat depending on where they are the time the message is sent. It's a smart move. Facebook is also handing out vanity addresses (yourname@facebook.com) and providing some storage capabilities. The new messages will keep track of communication between you and your friends.

Zuckerburg commented that Gmail is a great product, however the truth is that Facebook would like nothing more than to make it irrelevant. The technology that Facebook has developed is indeed a direct threat due to the large number of users on the network and it's ability to incorporate various types of communication. At the press conference Zuckerburg stated that he talked to the high schoolers of today and discovered that they don't really care for email. They're on their phones sending texts and on Facebook sending messages. It's hard to imagine a world without email, but the email of tomorrow will be more intuitive than what we have at our disposal today.

Right now nobody is watching Facebook more closely than Google. Earlier this year when Google tried to reverse engineer social into its DNA it caught a lot of flack. Google's thinking was simple, "we've got the email users. Let's build a social networking around them." Thus Google Buzz was born. Shortly after users realized it was a dud and Buzz is a ghost town nowadays. It's still there, but rarely used aside from a collection of devoted Google lovers. Facebooks approach has been the opposite. We have the social graph in place, now let's add features that people can use to help communicate with their networks. Relationships before technology. Although it hasn't been said out loud, Facebook has an agenda with the new Messages and something tells me that agenda includes taking people off Gmail and keeping them on Facebook.