In the end, it's a battle to be 'the' front-door on the internet. Will email continue as the main front-door or will Social Networking sites like Facebook and Myspace be the place where consumers start their internet experience?
A few months ago I ran across a post by Dave McClure that highlighted a Hitwise analysis documenting how Social networks had overtaken email traffic in the U.K.
"For the fist time last month, UK Internet visits to social networks overtook visits to web-based email services." (Robin Goad, Hitwise, Nov. 6, 2007)
So, how is the industry responding?
Email is Becoming more Social Networky
You may have missed it, but all of the major web-mail platforms (Yahoo!, AOL) will be opening up their platforms in 2009. These mail platforms have had open APIs for some time but they will now be opening up their web canvas like Facebook's F8 so developers can easily reach their existing web email users. I think it's safe to say the apps will make email look more like social networking sites.
Social Networks are Adding Rich Email
Not to be outdone, Myspace will be adding rich email and I'm sure other social networks will follow.
"MySpace is building a fully functional webmail product....MySpace mail will compete with services like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail and AOL Mail, and will on launch be the third largest webmail provider in the world. The largest webmail provider today is Microsoft, with 284 million worldwide users (Comscore). Yahoo Mail is the second largest with 277 million users. Gmail and AOL Mail are third and fifth, with 118 million and 50 million users respectively. MySpace’s 125 million active users (active being defined as logging in once per month) would immediately make them the third largest provider, assuming those users log in to the messaging/email feature. That’s very likely, given that it is the one of the most popular social networking features." (Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, Jan. 2009)
So, in the end, will both products look alike?
