Lots of buzz and rumors today that on November 15, Facebook will launch the Facebook Titan offering and the speculation is that it’s a Gmail killer. From the sound of it, Titan is going to offer email addresses ending in @facebook.com and that once people have that, there will never be a reason to go back to Gmail. It’s a little surprising they don’t make reference to the impact this will have on Hotmail, since I think Hotmail is still going strong . . .
Back in May I wrote a post about how Facebook already is a Gmail killer, and the whole point of that post was that you don’t need the @facebook.com piece to send a message. Once you find a person, depending on their security settings, all you have to do is click “send (name) a message”
Have a look at the example I have on the left. Jeff Raikes was a long time Microsoft executive who now runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Maybe not as famous as Mark Zuckerberg, but still an industry mogul, or titan in his own right. Just being able to click “send Jeff a Message” – not knowing any other contact details about Jeff, I could send him a message. This is really powerful, and I use this feature a lot when I read an article about someone and I want to reach out to them with a comment. It’s fast and easy and nine times out of ten the person responds right away.
Now I know the Facebook people tend to be pretty smart, it seems like needing the email address with the @facebook.com is going to be redundant, so I don’t know why they would do that, unless they think it’s just too complicated to advertise the fact that in Facebook you can send email to people without knowing their email address.
So I am going curious to see how this flies . . .or sinks, like the Titanic. With a name like Titan, if they do fail, I expect we will see the name Titanic in a lot of the articles – somewhat like when people said “next of Kin have been notified” after the spectacular failure of the Microsoft Kin device earlier this year. As an aside, I have seen the new Windows phone and it has some very differentiating features, especially social ones that should make it a success.
Let me know if I am all wet, but I just don’t see how Titan is good rethinking.
-Ric
I think you mean Facebook will launch the Facebook Titan.
Email looks to be less important to the milennials today replaced by SMS text, instant message, and in-site inboxes such as Facebook messaging.
Having an email address with @facebook.com might be a novelty, but I don’t see people retiring their existing email addresses to use it. We give email addresses out to friends and relatives, so changing becomes an event and one that many people will not go through.
-Bob