• Inside Facebook et al, Friday, November 12, 2010 2:26 PM

Having successfully revolutionized online communication, Facebook reportedly wants a piece of that enduring, pre-revolution messaging channel -- email.

On Monday, the social network is expected to unveil a full-fledged web-based email client, along with personal @facebook.com email addresses for users. And, as most industry watchers agree, such a development has Facebook-sized implications.

"Referred to as 'Project Titan' among Facebook employees, the email revamp could address criticism about deficiencies in the existing Messages product such as lack of easy forwarding, mass 'mark as read,' and attachment uploading," suggests Inside Facebook.

"There's a huge amount of potential here," writes TechCrunch. "Facebook has the world's most popular photos product, the most popular events product, and soon will have a very popular local deals product as well ... It can tweak the design of its webmail client to display content from each of these in a seamless fashion (and don't forget messages from games, or payments via Facebook Credits)."

"While many see this as an attack on Gmail, the bigger goal is likely to strengthen the ties (or chains) that bind Facebook to its core user base," according to GigaOm.

"The most significant thing about the possibility of a new Facebook email system is that Facebook would be suddenly moving into the world of productivity, something which until now has been the antithesis of Facebook," All Facebook writes. "In essence, a Facebook email service would mark a new era for the company, bringing it to the forefront of digital communications.

Still, as PCWorld notes, any Facebook email client will have to be pretty impressive to compete with top providers.

"Google's Gmail, for example, is particularly innovative, offering handy features such as Priority Inbox, filtering and labels, keyboard shortcuts, voice calling and a recently revised and improved contacts manager," PCWorld writes. "If Facebook offers a plain vanilla Webmail service that tries to boast of robust spam filtering as a user feature, then it may have a tough time convincing users to switch." However, perhaps working in Facebook's favor, Technologizer believes: "Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo Mail are all hobbled a bit by their sheer venerability and deep roots in traditional ways of doing things."

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