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Facebook Inbox Throws Blow At Google... No Flinch?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the there-can-be-only-two dept.

CWmike writes "Facebook's new messaging system may not be a Gmail killer, but it's definitely another blow in the growing battle between two Internet bigwigs. Facebook took the wraps off what it's calling a modern messaging system on Monday. The new system is designed to handle the convergence of different kinds of messages — Facebook messages, IMs, SMS and e-mail — and bring them together under a single social umbrella. The system also allows users to have a facebook.com email address, though it will work with other e-mail systems like Gmail and Yahoo. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is adamant that it's not intended to replace e-mail, but industry analysts say the new system will almost certainly draw some users away from Yahoo mail and Google's Gmail. Meanwhile, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Computerworld that he's not worried at all about Facebook's new 'Social Inbox.' 'More competition is always good because it makes the market larger,' Schmidt said, charging that journalists were hyping the rivalry: 'As a group, you all are focused on the competition rather than the market getting larger. It brings more people in. We are all served by having everybody in the world get online.'"

24 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Uh huh ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Funny

    'More competition is always good because it makes the market larger,' Schmidt said, charging that journalists were hyping the rivalry: 'As a group, you all are focused on the competition rather than the market getting larger. It brings more people in. We are all served by having everybody in the world get online.'

    Upon returning to his office after the press conference, Mr. Schmidt was heard to say, "I'm gonna fuckin' KILL Facebook!"

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:Uh huh ... by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Funny

      Or he calmly went back to his near-utopian Google campus and said, "I feel bad for Facebook. They have no idea what we have up our sleeve." And then he spent the rest of the day playing ping pong.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  2. Schmidt might not be worried, but I am. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More people shifting from open federated protocols to the closed world of Facebook is a bad thing. I sincerely hope that it doesn't happen.

    1. Re:Schmidt might not be worried, but I am. by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More people shifting from open federated protocols to the closed world of Facebook is a bad thing. I sincerely hope that it doesn't happen.

      AOL had a shot at this and lost it. People are fickle and the 'latest greatest' trends will turn Facebook into the next MySpace within a few more years. What will replace Facebook? That is the billion dollar question.

    2. Re:Schmidt might not be worried, but I am. by SETIGuy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The lack of competence goes all the way to the top. Facebook is coasting on inertia at this point and surviving on the lack of a decent competitor. As far as I can tell the current business model is based upon taking away the features users like and adding ones they don't want. And somehow some businesses still advertise there.

      --
      Support SETI@home
  3. what ever happened to good old email? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You know, the kind where the content was not owned and searched by a multinational corporation?

    I mean it as a serious question, not rhetorical. Why are SO many people willing to have all their communication logged and data-mined by for-profit companies? We've had email since around 1720. OK, maybe more like 1970-1, but anyway still a really long time. Until very recently, it was never true that a huge fraction of it was all going through facebook or google.

    Why on earth would people give that up? I can't see what benefit they are getting. As far as I can tell, all modes allowed by something like gmail or facebook can be accomplished without the corporate overlords in the picture. There is email, non-corporate IM, and so forth.

    What am I missing? I seem perfectly able to communicate with all my friends online both in real time and non-real time without using those things, so it can't be "you will be isolated!!11!one!"

    1. Re:what ever happened to good old email? by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You know, the kind where the content was not owned and searched by a multinational corporation?

      I mean it as a serious question, not rhetorical. Why are SO many people willing to have all their communication logged and data-mined by for-profit companies? We've had email since around 1720. OK, maybe more like 1970-1, but anyway still a really long time. Until very recently, it was never true that a huge fraction of it was all going through facebook or google.

      Why on earth would people give that up? I can't see what benefit they are getting. As far as I can tell, all modes allowed by something like gmail or facebook can be accomplished without the corporate overlords in the picture. There is email, non-corporate IM, and so forth.

      What am I missing? I seem perfectly able to communicate with all my friends online both in real time and non-real time without using those things, so it can't be "you will be isolated!!11!one!"

      I don't have an answer, other than the fact that these services are "free" and whatever downsides there are to these technologies, most people seem blissfully unaware of them. I'm on your side though: I've run my own mail server since before the Internet went public (I ran a decent BBS at one point, and was a hub for a number of mail networks.) When I first got online with the Internet, my first thought was to do the same for my own mail. I saw (and still) see no reason to let my mail pass through anyone else's servers if I don't have to. I wouldn't want my snail mail pawed over by a corporation looking to sell "targeted" junk mail either.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    2. Re:what ever happened to good old email? by fishexe · · Score: 4, Funny

      We've had email since around 1720. OK, maybe more like 1970-1, but anyway still a really long time.

      Yeah, 1720 was when IP over Avian Carriers was invented, though it took that one 270 years of use to even get put into a written standard.

      --
      "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
    3. Re:what ever happened to good old email? by SETIGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why are SO many people willing to have all their communication logged and data-mined by for-profit companies?

      For the features, of course. Grepping through 7GB of email is slower than hell. I have yet to find a mail client that will import and index that much mail without crashing. Even if one exists it will be damn slow when searching. It also won't be very useful from my phone for maintaining a merged email/phone/postal address book. That PC based client also won't store SMS texts with included images. Or translate my voicemails into text emails.

      There's certainly a market for an email system that does all that without storing data non-locally. Nobody has developed it yet, and it won't gain wide acceptance unless it is marketed by Microsoft. And there you're back to having trust issues again.

      --
      Support SETI@home
    4. Re:what ever happened to good old email? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I want a single inbox that is accessible from all of the half dozen devices that I use, and completely up-to-date at any given point regardless of which device is used. I don't see any other choice but the "cloud" here.

  4. How about some V14GR4 in your facebook? by RocketRabbit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google has always done a really, really good job at keeping spam out of my actual inbox. I have had a gmail account for an awfully long time, and the amount of spam that has made it into my inbox is miniscule.

    Facebook, on the other hand, makes it a point to spam you with as much crap as possible. What use will a facebook.com mail account be when it is just choked with messages about virtual cows, virtual gifts, virtual sit-ins against and / or for just about everything, etc.

    Google is a notorious marketer, but I don't fear them in the same way that I fear facebook. Google promises not to use the information they collect to personally identify you. Facebook already has your personal identification. What do you think that little prick Zuckerberg is going to do with it?

    Let's ask Zuck himself:

    SLASHDOT: so have you decided what you are going to do about the users?
    ZUCK: yea i'm going to fuck them
    ZUCK: probably in the ear
    ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at internets
    ZUCK: just ask
    ZUCK: i have over 400000000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
    FRIEND: what!? how'd you manage that one?
    ZUCK: people just submitted it
    ZUCK: i don't know why
    ZUCK: they "trust me"
    ZUCK: dumb fucks

    1. Re:How about some V14GR4 in your facebook? by RocketRabbit · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, the point is that Zuck himself has admitted that he thinks I am a dumb fuck for trusting him. He has gone on the record and said that he doesn't believe in privacy on the internet anyway.

      He considers me a dumb fuck for even getting a facebook account in the first place, for giving him that information. Unfortunately like many people here, I was sort of roped into it by my family. They think it's awfully convenient and just think I'm a tool for suggesting that facebook might not be ultimately a good thing for the world. "Oh but I can keep up with all the people I never bothered to keep up with." Whoopee, but you can see the attraction there for some folks.

      Hell, I know one girl who accepts friend requests from anybody, and posts a lot of suggestive photos of herself. She thinks it's all in fun, but I think she should be *very* afraid of that sort of interaction with thousands of random strangers.

      My other buddy did facebook correctly. He used part of his real last name for his first name, made up a fictional last name, and posts nothing.

  5. Facebook by falldeaf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not facebook's biggest fan... I'm forced to use it more and more because of friends and family but if someone truly did consolidate IM, email, SMS, calling, voicemail and whatever else in a meaningful, easy to access way I'd be completely on board. Google is getting close but I still have to have two or three tabs open and some of it feels very tacked on. IM'ing in gmail for instance. I'd love to get a notification for any of them through the same system and a simple way to answer all of them back, too!

    --
    check out the Mp3 Garbler I built!
  6. Re:Meh by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Correction.

    One company just directs ads to you. They serve the ads directly and they don't hand over your private data.

    The other company routinely changes privacy policies every couple months so you don't know they're exposing and selling your data after you repeatedly told them you don't want them doing that.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  7. Several problems by jav1231 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    First, I have all kinds of convergence on GMail and frankly, don't care for it. In fact I rarely use the web client. I'm a throwback geek, what can I say. I do use the texting feature when I can't text from area with no coverage.

    The big problem Facebook has right now is credibility. Given the myriad of accounts that are hijacked daily, the privacy issues, I can think of no other company I want my data to be on less than Facebook. Except maybe Microsoft but I like piling on Microsoft. :)

    From what I can tell, it would take years for FB to get spam under control because they don't even have it under control on their site now. One reason I'm using GMail is because no other online email app rejects spam better.

    Facebook can't rely on pretty colors and whirly thingies. They need to get their act together before branching out. Yes, Microsoft was able to branch out by spreading mediocrity but the world was a lot less tech savvy then.

  8. Google? by rudy_wayne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Facebook's new messaging system may not be a Gmail killer

    Here's an interesting graphic that surprised me. U.S. Internet traffic to Web-based email clients

    #1 Yahoo - 72.8 million

    #2 Hotmail - 48.5 million

    #3 GMail - 25.1 million

    1. Re:Google? by pnuema · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You forget - Yahoo is the default email address for anyone who uses AT&T (formerly Southwestern Bell) as an ISP. No one else gets that kind of subscriber boost.

  9. Google's "nightmare scenario"... by DdJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I understand the presentation I saw, one of the things this Facebook tool will have going for it is, it'll be an IMAP client. You can punch in the details of your mail server, and use it as webmail for that service. Like, embed SquirrelMail in Facebook.

    If Facebook can convince users to punch in the details for GMail's IMAP server, reading their GMail mail via Facebook instead of the GMail web interface, then Google runs the mail infrastructure, but Facebook gets the ad impressions. Remember, if you access GMail via IMAP, you see no ads at all. (I use GMail via IMAP, from several desktop and handheld IMAP clients.) If that started to happen in any volume, I bet Google would wake up and notice.

  10. trust my private and professional mail with Zuck ? by unity100 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    hahahahahaha.

    sorry, no dice. zuck is trustworthy and reliable for me as much as ... well, brutus maybe ...

    --
    Read radical news here
  11. I already have convergence by Is0m0rph · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's called an Android phone.

  12. Re:Meh by Enderandrew · · Score: 2, Funny

    http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email_address

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
  13. I don't see the issue... by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Realize who this service is aimed at... When these people joined facebook they gladly handed over passwords for all their email accounts and instant messaging services. Now all this stuff is going to be done in house.

    At this point, if you've used facebook and you haven't been completely neurotic about what you're exposing, they've got a very good handle on who you are, who your friends are, what's in your inbox and what's in your friends inbox.

    Those of us, who want to keep our privacy won't use this service. That other group of people have already lost their privacy, they just haven't realized it yet.

    --
    Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
  14. Way I look at it by rikkards · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I submit my cv for a job do I really want my email address to say @facebook.com?

    Didn't think so.

    1. Re:Way I look at it by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When I submit my cv for a job do I really want my email address to say @facebook.com?

      Didn't think so.

      Even worse, when they look up your profile and see all the "pictures of you" taken by friends at that party you'd rather forget. It happened to me, its really embarrassing. How was I to know that going to the local tea party wasn't going to involve a nice cup of Earl Gray, buttered scones and Jam.