Social Media Giant Facebook Launches New E-Mail Service to Kill G-Mail

Facebook is now in the e-mail business. The new Facebook e-mail service will work more like a chat application than a traditional e-mail service like G-Mail or Yahoo!.

"We don't think a modern messaging service is going to be e-mail," Zuckerberg said, explaining that his company's new service is modeled more after chat than after a straight e-mail client. One of the e-mail's key flaws, after all, is that it's not real time. And messaging needs to be immediate, he said.

"I'm not saying you need to send an e-mail and it shows up at the speed of light," Zuckerberg clarified, but the speed of instant messaging or text messages on cell phones is dramatically different from e-mails.

"We can do better," Zuckerberg said.

While the new product will incorporate @facebook.com e-mail addresses, Zuckerberg said it will be more than just Gmail competition. It will offer three key features other e-mail services lack: seamless messaging across a variety of platforms, including SMS and texting; conversation history across those platforms; and a "social in-box," meaning the company can filter the in-box just to include messages from friends.