Facebook And AOL to Offer New Email Service
AOL and Facebook have decided to offer new email services. In the case of AOL it will be an email service that should make consolidating different email addresses easier under a new Project Phoenix email address. Facebook’s offering is expected to be closely tied into Facebook and will not be a stand alone email service.
According to two articles in The New York Times, AOL and Facebook are attempting to do two different things. As part of AOL’s continuing makeover, the company has decided to provide an email service to its members that will consolidate all of the member’s various email addresses into one easy to access email service.
Many people have various email accounts with different email providers. They may use Gmail for work, Yahoo mail for website registrations, and AOL for personal email. All of those email addresses can be consolidated under one AOL email through AOL’s beta email service, Project Phoenix.
Consolidating email accounts under one address is not new. Most email programs will let you forward other email addresses to that email address but you have to be able to give the IMAP or POP addresses of the other email services. It isn’t as easy as it seems plus some email providers require you to pay for that privilege.
AOL’s new email service promises to simplify the forwarding service so that all of your other email addresses can be found in one place. Since it looks as if AOL is going to offer it for free, that also may force other providers to lower or do away with their prices. AOL will also allow you to mix them altogether in one inbox or separate them out buy email address.
Also available from the Project Phoenix are other upgrades expected improve online communication. You will also have the ability to have other domain addresses like “@wow.com, @love.com, and @games.com” The crowning feature will be a “Quick Bar” at the top that improves multitasking.
Facebook’s new email offering is less clear except for one major aspect: Facebook is trying to get people to spend even more time on Facebook. According to The New York Times’ article, “Americans spend more of their time online with Facebook than with any other Internet company, including Google and Yahoo.” The new email service would allow Facebook users to have an @Facebook.com address.
The new email and other “communications” offerings that Facebook is expected to unveil today, are expected to be tightly bound to Facebook and not be stand alone services. Since so little is known about the services until the press conference, it will be difficult to say whether it will also contain a feature that will easily allow you to consolidate all of your email addresses.
Also, do you really want Facebook to have access to more of your life? With the constant privacy problems do you really want to chance someone being able to access your email?
Should Google, Yahoo, and MSN worry? AOL’s new offerings might help AOL current members to have a better experience but is it enough to get non AOLers to join up? Probably not.
As already mentioned, how much access do you want Facebook to have over all of your information? Do you really want Facebook to be in control of those crazy emails you send back and forth between your friends? The ones that if taken out of context, could get you fired or bullied on line?
Some people are going to love having more of their lives and information on Facebook and will find it to be a great asset. Will it do away with the stand alone email addresses that they currently have? Probably not but if it acts like a communications hub similar to AOL, people are likely to spend less time on AOL, Yahoo and Google. All of those sites offer more than just social interaction, they offer news, weather, current events and other amenities. Facebook offers mostly an online social life.
According to two articles in The New York Times, AOL and Facebook are attempting to do two different things. As part of AOL’s continuing makeover, the company has decided to provide an email service to its members that will consolidate all of the member’s various email addresses into one easy to access email service.
Many people have various email accounts with different email providers. They may use Gmail for work, Yahoo mail for website registrations, and AOL for personal email. All of those email addresses can be consolidated under one AOL email through AOL’s beta email service, Project Phoenix.
Consolidating email accounts under one address is not new. Most email programs will let you forward other email addresses to that email address but you have to be able to give the IMAP or POP addresses of the other email services. It isn’t as easy as it seems plus some email providers require you to pay for that privilege.
AOL’s new email service promises to simplify the forwarding service so that all of your other email addresses can be found in one place. Since it looks as if AOL is going to offer it for free, that also may force other providers to lower or do away with their prices. AOL will also allow you to mix them altogether in one inbox or separate them out buy email address.
Also available from the Project Phoenix are other upgrades expected improve online communication. You will also have the ability to have other domain addresses like “@wow.com, @love.com, and @games.com” The crowning feature will be a “Quick Bar” at the top that improves multitasking.
Facebook’s new email offering is less clear except for one major aspect: Facebook is trying to get people to spend even more time on Facebook. According to The New York Times’ article, “Americans spend more of their time online with Facebook than with any other Internet company, including Google and Yahoo.” The new email service would allow Facebook users to have an @Facebook.com address.
The new email and other “communications” offerings that Facebook is expected to unveil today, are expected to be tightly bound to Facebook and not be stand alone services. Since so little is known about the services until the press conference, it will be difficult to say whether it will also contain a feature that will easily allow you to consolidate all of your email addresses.
Also, do you really want Facebook to have access to more of your life? With the constant privacy problems do you really want to chance someone being able to access your email?
Should Google, Yahoo, and MSN worry? AOL’s new offerings might help AOL current members to have a better experience but is it enough to get non AOLers to join up? Probably not.
As already mentioned, how much access do you want Facebook to have over all of your information? Do you really want Facebook to be in control of those crazy emails you send back and forth between your friends? The ones that if taken out of context, could get you fired or bullied on line?
Some people are going to love having more of their lives and information on Facebook and will find it to be a great asset. Will it do away with the stand alone email addresses that they currently have? Probably not but if it acts like a communications hub similar to AOL, people are likely to spend less time on AOL, Yahoo and Google. All of those sites offer more than just social interaction, they offer news, weather, current events and other amenities. Facebook offers mostly an online social life.
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