Is Facebook about to offer email? Reports say it plans a 'Gmail... - San Jose Mercury News

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mswift@mercurynews.com

Posted: 11/12/2010 07:31:19 PM PSTUpdated: 11/13/2010 12:21:13 PM PST
Facebook may be on the verge of offering e-mail to the 500 million members of its social-networking site, making it the largest e-mail service on the planet.

More significantly, the offering could lead to a fundamental transformation of e-mail. Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are already scrambling to retool their e-mail services to build them more around people's social connections. Facebook would have a tremendous advantage because it owns a vast trove of data about people's relationships and would find it easier to graft e-mail onto its existing social services such as photo-sharing.

Facebook has invited the media to what appears to be a significant announcement in San Francisco on Monday morning, adding a

prominent hint that the news could involve a new e-mail service -- a press invitation bears a message icon. However, while tech blogs hummed Friday with speculation that Facebook will release "a Gmail killer," the Palo Alto-based company declined to confirm or deny those rumors, and a source with knowledge of the social network's plans said at least part of the speculation was incorrect -- adding even more uncertainty.

If it is announced, a Facebook e-mail service would allow its more than 500 million members to communicate with anyone inside or outside the walls of the social network. If they use it, Facebook would leapfrog the 361 million global users of Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo Mail's 273 million users and Gmail's 193 million

users, according to comScore.

However, a Facebook e-mail service would be most remarkable not for the size of its network, but for how it could use its web of social connections to transform one of the oldest -- and perhaps still the most important -- functions of the Internet.

"There is a huge opportunity for these guys to fundamentally change the nature of e-mail," said Matt Cain, an analyst for the research firm Gartner who expects Facebook to unveil an external e-mail service Monday.

Imagine, Cain said, a Facebook system that could prioritize mail from any external source based on the closeness of your relationship to the sender, or that allows you to easily flip a one-to-one e-mail exchange into a conversation with a group of friends.

Facebook now offers an internal message service that is less functional than most Web-based e-mail, and only allows members to communicate with other Facebook accounts. But Facebook may hope to use a new external e-mail service to capture even more adherents, said Augie Ray, senior analyst for social computing for Forrester Research. Forrester says that while about 90 percent of U.S. adults check e-mail regularly, only 59 percent use social networking tools such as

(PrintExpress PDF Export. - IPA S)Facebook or Twitter.

An e-mail service "makes sense just largely from a reach perspective. Facebook has grown so large that we forget that it still has room for growth," Ray said.

And by adding e-mail to the Internet's most popular photo-sharing service, smartphone location-sharing service and social gaming site, Facebook would make an even stronger claim as a hub of personal communications, placing "Facebook as much into competition with AT&T as it is now with Google," Ray said.

The tech blog TechCrunch first reported in February that Facebook was working on an e-mail service, internally dubbed "Project Titan." And while it is possible that Monday's announcement will be something more modest, both TechCrunch and VentureBeat claimed Friday to have confirmed the e-mail service with anonymous sources.

Google and Yahoo are working to make e-mail more reflective of people's personal connections by adding social-networking features to existing e-mail services. Google had disastrous results when it based its Google Buzz social-networking service on people's Gmail contacts, running into a privacy Waterloo when it automatically imported people into the service. Yahoo, the most popular U.S. e-mail provider, recently launched a new version of Mail that allows users to broadcast their status on both Twitter and Facebook -- just as if they were actually on those sites.

Unhappy with Facebook's unwillingness to let people export their contacts from Facebook into a service like Gmail, Google last week blocked Facebook from allowing users to import their Google contacts directly into the social network.

Gmail is the hot property in e-mail right now, with its global audience up 21 percent during the 12 months ending in September, while Yahoo Mail and Hotmail have both lost share, according to comScore data.

Given Gmail's momentum, a Facebook e-mail service "puts tremendous pressure on Google," Cain said. "Gmail is the place to be, and all of sudden, in one fell swoop, Facebook can enable e-mail for 500 million users, and I would suspect there is a huge overlap."

Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories.

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After angry e-mail, Todd Palin, Miller deny rift - The Associated Press

After angry e-mail, Todd Palin, Miller deny riftBy BECKY BOHRER (AP) – 3 hours ago

JUNEAU, Alaska — First Todd Palin was mad at Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller for stepping around the question of whether his wife is qualified to be president. Now he's mad at the media for releasing his angry e-mail to Miller, who received a key endorsement from Sarah Palin on his way to becoming a tea party favorite.

The Palins and Miller dismissed any talk of a rift between them Wednesday, but when asked again if Sarah Palin is qualified to be president, Miller responded much as he had initially, saying the former Alaska governor meets the requirements spelled out in the Constitution and that it's not his role to comment further on races other than his own.

In an interview with Fox News, Miller repeated a belief that he has stated before, that "anyone" who steps forward would make a better presidential candidate than Democratic President Barack Obama.

Miller said it's not up to him to say whether Palin will run. He said the whole issue was a "sideline" to what's happening in Alaska and an effort to distract from the Senate race.

When further pressed on his thoughts on Palin, he said: "She's done phenomenal things for this country. There's no question about that. She's elevated the debate."

He also credited her for playing a role in his upset primary victory over Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is now running as a Republican write-in. The Democrat in the race is Scott McAdams.

The issue was raised after a Sept. 19 e-mail from Todd Palin to Miller was posted on The Mudflats, a blog on Alaska politics. He sent it shortly after Miller appeared on Fox News and declined to comment on whether Sarah Palin was qualified to be president.

Todd Palin wrote that his wife had put herself "on the line for Joe and yet he can't answer a simple question."

"Joe, please explain how this endorsement stuff works, is it to be completely one sided," he wrote. "Sarah spent all morning working on a Face book post for Joe, she won't use it, not now."

The Mudflats' copy of the e-mail shows that Miller forwarded it and noted, "This is what we're dealing with. Note the date and the complete misconstruction of what I said." The recipients were blocked out but the blog said he forwarded it to his campaign staff.

Todd Palin, in a statement to The Weekly Standard, blamed the media for posting personal e-mails online and sought to dismiss the suggestion of any rift with Miller. He said he fired off the e-mail when he had thought Miller had been "something less than supportive of my wife's efforts" on his behalf.

"But it turns out we'd gotten our wires crossed, and Joe hadn't said anything like what I'd been told," he wrote.

Sarah Palin tweeted Wednesday that there's "no 'There, there' but the lamestream media will keep on tryin'."

Palin family attorney Thomas Van Flein didn't immediately respond to messages Wednesday.

Since Miller's Sept. 19 interview, there have been no postings about him on Sarah Palin's Facebook page.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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