Apparently I’m over a week late on this, but Facebook has announced they are working on a revamping of their messaging platform to implement a full on email platform that will rival gmail (Yahoo Mail, AOL, etc.). This is to include POP3 and IMAP support (that means you can use it outside of Facebook).
Why is this such big news? In 2009, the time spent on personal email was surpassed by time spent on social media sites. Email is becoming more and more for business purposes while social media is the venue for personal messaging (even business use is shifting to some degree).
Is Facebook up for the challenge? Keep in mind that Google launched their social media platform – Orkut – one month before Facebook saw the light of day. If you’ve never heard of Orkut, it’s because it failed to gain adoption in the U.S… although it is huge in India and Brazil the same way David Hasselhoff is huge in Germany. One of the lessons to be learned is that huge companies – even Google – don’t always win.
But Facebook already has adoption and knows who your friends are. Plus, people are already using it for some messaging needs. It’s a crazy world.
Are you ready to rumble
So here’s the run down:
Google is doing everything including mobile phones and a new Operating System (Chrome) to rival Microsoft, Apple and even Linux. Plus they continue to try to push deeper into local search as evidenced by their failed attempt to buy Yelp.
Apple is trying to do everything, too. Recently, they have been in talks with Microsoft to use Bing as the default iPhone search engine instead of Google (what?!?!?!). To add insult to injury, Apple refused to accept Google’s Voice app into their App Store. All of this, of course, comes after Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO) resigned his position as a Director at Apple based on a conflict of interest. Oh yeah, Apple also wants to be your cable TV provider.
Microsoft still has huge market share, but seems to be muddling by on its laurels. Although one of the reasons that Google’s $550 million bid for Yelp fell through was that Microsoft counter offered $700 million.
And Facebook continues it’s march to try to dominate how people interact online.
This is going to be a huge battle akin to the battle for delivering data to homes that pitted phone, cable, and satellite providers at odds when they all realized that fundamentally they were trying to do the same thing – deliver information.
Summation
So… how does this affect local organizations trying to reach their target audience and build patron relationships? Dunno, but unfortunately, I think this is going to get more muddled for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, hang in there and good luck trying to figure out where to put your time and money.
New Facebook email versus Gmail
Apparently I’m over a week late on this, but Facebook has announced they are working on a revamping of their messaging platform to implement a full on email platform that will rival gmail (Yahoo Mail, AOL, etc.). This is to include POP3 and IMAP support (that means you can use it outside of Facebook).
Why is this such big news? In 2009, the time spent on personal email was surpassed by time spent on social media sites. Email is becoming more and more for business purposes while social media is the venue for personal messaging (even business use is shifting to some degree).
Is Facebook up for the challenge? Keep in mind that Google launched their social media platform – Orkut – one month before Facebook saw the light of day. If you’ve never heard of Orkut, it’s because it failed to gain adoption in the U.S… although it is huge in India and Brazil the same way David Hasselhoff is huge in Germany. One of the lessons to be learned is that huge companies – even Google – don’t always win.
But Facebook already has adoption and knows who your friends are. Plus, people are already using it for some messaging needs. It’s a crazy world.
Are you ready to rumble
So here’s the run down:
Google is doing everything including mobile phones and a new Operating System (Chrome) to rival Microsoft, Apple and even Linux. Plus they continue to try to push deeper into local search as evidenced by their failed attempt to buy Yelp.
Apple is trying to do everything, too. Recently, they have been in talks with Microsoft to use Bing as the default iPhone search engine instead of Google (what?!?!?!). To add insult to injury, Apple refused to accept Google’s Voice app into their App Store. All of this, of course, comes after Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO) resigned his position as a Director at Apple based on a conflict of interest. Oh yeah, Apple also wants to be your cable TV provider.
Microsoft still has huge market share, but seems to be muddling by on its laurels. Although one of the reasons that Google’s $550 million bid for Yelp fell through was that Microsoft counter offered $700 million.
And Facebook continues it’s march to try to dominate how people interact online.
This is going to be a huge battle akin to the battle for delivering data to homes that pitted phone, cable, and satellite providers at odds when they all realized that fundamentally they were trying to do the same thing – deliver information.
Summation
So… how does this affect local organizations trying to reach their target audience and build patron relationships? Dunno, but unfortunately, I think this is going to get more muddled for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, hang in there and good luck trying to figure out where to put your time and money.
Let me know what you think!