Facebook Shuts Down @Facebook Email System

First time accepted submitter beaker_72 writes "The BBC are reporting that Facebook will end their email system which provided users an @Facebook.com email address in March. The official line from Facebook is that not many people have been using the service. Is that really the case or have they found it too challenging to monetize that part of their service? Did users stay away from this 'service' because they've become more savvy and recognized it for what it was — another way to harvest their data? Or is it the case that the market is currently saturated with free webmail services and there wasn't room for another one?"

Comments

Because people already have E-mail addresses?

[mlts]

I'm guessing that since FB requires an existing E-mail address to sign up, having @facebook.com would be redundant... not to mention the lack of a really decent E-mail client.

Re:Because people already have E-mail addresses?

[i kan reed]

What's really annoying about it is the way they started by forcing people to use it as their contact address, and then those people suckered by their abuse now have people trying to reach them with a now-inactive system.

It's the same basic problem with any website that tries to force it's "neat new features" on users. Youtube and googleplus is a similar thing. When google plus inevitably fails(and it will), they're going to have to go through an elaborate shutdown process that impinges on all the other google services people use.

The point I'm trying to make(and no it won't reach anyone that needs to hear it, Dice) is to stop pretending your existing userbase will love and use your new services just because you tell them to.

Could it be because of access issues?

[Kevin108]

I would think most people have little use for an e-mail address that cannot be accessed from work.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Professional Email Address

[jellomizer]

I am sorry a Facebook.com email address is rather unprofessional, unless you actually work at Facebook.

Why is Facebook.com more unprofessional then say gmail.com?
Well for one, Facebook is in generally more informal, it is all about gossip and keeping contacts with your friends. While you use Google for real work too.

For your personal email it still needs a degree of professionalism, because that is what is going to be on your resume, and with other non-work related business contact.
Your work email isn't that good because you can change jobs and your email goes away.
The same if you use your ISP's email address.

Hotmail.com, AOL.com, Yahoo.com all still work too. However you can sometimes seem dated.

outlook.com could work too, but you seem like a Microsoftie.

I myself prefer to have my own domain name, then link it to whatever email service that I like a the time.