MySpace is building a fully functional webmail product, we’ve learned from sources with knowledge of the 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.
All MySpace users will be assigned an email address of [username]@myspace.com. The product is still in development, and we don’t know when it will be released.
The first hint of the new service was a reassignment of some MySpace employee email addresses to [name]@myspace-inc.com, which people have noticed. This is a sign that they are preparing to assign MySpace.com email addresses to users, which is exactly how Yahoo handled the transition when they launched Yahoo Mail in 1997 – Yahoo employees moved to yahoo-inc.com email addresses. We’ve subsequently confirmed that MySpace is currently building a webmail product.
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.
Messaging on social networks has to date trailed far behind cutting edge webmail services. MySpace currently allows only one-to-one messaging to other MySpace users, although integration with Google Gears in May 2008 dramatically improved performance. Facebook allows messages to be sent to up to 20 people and supports messages to outside email addresses, but the product remains essentially unusable as a productivity tool.
MySpace won’t confirm or deny this report, although they did send us this advertisement as an official comment:
Messaging is one of the most popular communication tools for MySpace’s 125 million users worldwide. We actively listen to the feedback we receive from our users and are constantly evaluating new ways to enhance the messaging experience for our community. Our recent collaboration with Google to introduce the first search and sort mail functionality into MySpace was extremely well received. We do not comment on company rumors or speculation but will share more details on additional product plans when we have news.
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I can only imagine the amount of spam that would hit those email addresses. NO THANKS.
but they ARE spammers themselves! who are they gonna spam, each other?
now the real question is why hasn’t facebook done this, and why haven’t they introduced a pop client for mobile devices and standard mail clients (including gmail)? they are leaving big money on the table…
facebk is asleep at the wheel. this is exciting what myspac is doing. finally a little common sense integration. the mylocator platform will be able to offer a selection of over 1300 natural language email faceplates that can mask and simply forward to the dorky yaho, hotman, and gmale email addresses users currently have. when the mylocator i.p.o. (initial postal offering) pops out the email game will be changed forever.
PostalLocator.com – pushing the envelope
I just hope they use DKIM !
myspace seem much better than facebook at this…
(they sign their newsletters with domain keys and have SPF records… )
regards
John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk
On MySpace usernames aren’t widespread. Users sign in with their email address and some have a name for a url. Seems like this may become a mess.
I had a hotmail account for years in the early days. I didn’t log into it for 12 weeks so Microsoft deleted my account along with all my contacts. They really know how tp please theire customers.
When Gooogle launched gmail. Mircosoft responded by charging people for extra space.
Hotmail should be worried. About their own management!
__________________________
http://kisalt.net/d2
“and will on launch be the third largest webmail provider in the world”
No it won’t. It would only be the third largest if all myspace members are using it.
Less hyperbole please.
the “vast” majority of active myspace users log into messaging at least once per month.
I’m talking about the percentage of users who will not suddenly drop their existing gmail/yahoo/hotmail/whatever accounts to use the new myspace offering.
Aside from the fact the initial implementation is likely to be sucky and unreliable it’s unlikely that myspace will offer any form of pop/imap access for quite some. That alone will be a deal-breaker for much of the Blackberry/iPhone/whatever market.
PS – Does anyone else think how crazily easy it would be to build a myspace-email harvesting bot?
Hello myspam email!
I log into all my Social Networking accounts daily, and im on hundreds of them. I would advise anyone looking to monopolize their government names to do the same.
You could make the same qualification about the numbers of the other providers. There are millions of abandoned accounts on Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, and so forth.
If you’re going to count only active users, you have to do the same with the providers you’re using for comparison.
I did.
Sorry dude, you’re just plain wrong. Nice attempt at sounding esoteric though.
Oh my god.
In order to even look at an email from there you’d have to wear sunglasses and earplugs. Not to mention risk sacrificing whole millions of brain cells.
Come on, this is ridiculous. No technology MySpace has ever built has worked well. There’s no way they’re going to build a webmail product that doesn’t suck.
“There’s no way they’re going to build a webmail product that doesn’t suck” – that’s very probably true.
But “the suck” will easily please their user base. Why give them lobster when they only want spam (the pseudo-meat kind)?
Does it come with built in Incredimail?
stealth no more:)
I had a hotmail account for years in the early days. I didn’t log into it for 12 weeks so Microsoft deleted my account along with all my contacts. They really know how tp please theire customers.
When Gooogle launched gmail. Mircosoft responded by charging people for extra space.
Hotmail should be worried. About their own management!
that is sorry u shoulde’v suid them…… =(
I don’t even have a username, I just use my friend ID. Well for now anyway. Hopefully they don’t make usernames compulsory -__-
I can imagine myspace.com email addresses becoming 2009’s email badge-of-shame.
i certainly hope you get a new privacy contract to click if they do this… with all of the toys and gadgets and eulas people clicked to be mobsters or hatchlings or whatever, who all will GET that email address once myspace assigns it?
The numbers in the article above don’t match the numbers here: http://www.tech...start-worrying/
It seems some of the numbers in the article above are total users while others are actual active users.
the article you link to shows U.S. numbers. The ones above are worldwide.
cool!
There have been rumblings about MySpace doing this for years and it’s a good move on their part. Getting users more invested means it will be harder for users to move over to another social network.
Poor MySpace. They never get any respect. Sure their user’s profiles look awful but all MySpace has done is build a profitable site full of advertising opportunities that hasn’t alienated their core group of users.
That’s more than Facebook can say right now.
They also sold their site for cold hard cash and have built up good partnerships with music labels (at least some of them).
Definitely more than Facebook can say.
I would doubt that MySpace is “building” their own mail service. The onsite service already uses Google Gears. I would not bet that they partner with Google, ( who they use for search already and gears for messaging) to provide the email service. It would be very easy to do. API for single sign-on, customize the interface of google apps mail to have a “MySpace” feel. Google then has 125 million new places to serve up ads, and MySpace has a new influx of cash. Win – Win for both companys.
Maybe powered by Gmail? That makes it easier.
Why is everyone being so harsh? We should give the new innovation a try, instead of just making rude, thoughtless insults.
“Send me an email later!”
“Sure, what’s your email?”
“xoxoemoboy4tearsxoxo@myspace.com”
“wow.”
exactly what i was thinking about, otherwise they’ll have to give each user the opportunity to manually SELECT his/her email address.
Much much different from “xoxoemoboy4tearsxoxo@yahoo.com” or any other e-mail service, eh?
MySpace is working on a lot of things. The problem is no one at the Company understands a thing about usability or how to build a great product. Nor do they know how to market new products to their users.
Is there any reason for people to not use Facebook at this point?
That’s what I thought when they rolled out Myspace News…. you know how many Gen Z’s care about current events?
Because Facebook is balls.
I’m confused, is there money to be maid from webmail? Besides the ads that I hardly ever click on.
Myspace webmail hum…
Do you really want an email address of [someone]@myspace.com ?
HAHA… I would say the original writer know very little about the mail market, he MUST know nothing about China.
Here in China, the LARGEST FREE MAIL PROVIDER is one-six-three dot com, not the stupid http://mail.163.com, and we seldom use the stupid qq.com mail service.
This will be an amazing innovation to everyone emerging from a coma they have been in since early 96.
I think it’s really interesting that the freemail market is still a target for new players. I’m wondering how the market is evolving in the next years and if one of the new players will hit the big four. (like my choice: GMX.com – TOP 3 here: http://email.ab...30;.._email.htm )
Just think how bad the Myspace Mail interface is going to be !!!!!
This is a stupid idea. This could work for the teenager age-range; but, for the rest of us?
In this day and age, your email associates you with a lot of services, and many applications that aggregate your social media history require it.
So it’s important to use one main e-mail. E-mail rule of thumb also recommends not using retarded email usernames like cooldude123 for social networking, and professional correspondence.
Now, is having alexanderhorre@myspace.com a better result? I think it’s backwards. If anyone of any caliber profession uses it, it’d probably email forward.
When will walled-garden mindets die?
All of my Myspace logins are email addresses. I don’t have a username that I’m aware of.
Does that mean I’ll have my@email.com@myspace.com as my new Myspace address? I’m guessing they’ll use your unique URL if you’ve chosen one, or maybe allow everyone to choose a new username.
Either way it seems like a mess. If they use the name in your URL then anyone viewing your page now has your email address.
I can see why they’re doing this though. I actually know people who already use Myspace way more than email to communicate with their friends and family.
And I guess one nice thing about it is that for a promotional Myspace page (for a band, etc) this makes it a little easier to allow people to contact you. They can just send something to your myspace email instead of having to login to the site.
Maybe they first should make it so you could easily navigate through their site. Everything seems so crowded. I stopped using it because of that.
Even though MySpace and Facebook are becoming a little too ridiculous, Facebook would have a better chance in this Mail client than MySpace.
Plus, if they want me to use it, they better let me add my other email accounts into it. I don’t need another one.
So another email to check? I have like 2-3 dozen emails already, at least Gmail centralizes it all.
I felt that myspace inbox was already an email to an extant. I guess i was wrong.
Maybe they first should make it so you could easily navigate through their site. Everything seems so crowded. I stopped using it because of that.
g
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hey so what the hell is going on you come over to what brake my heart all over again, then I hear your seeing preston what about u being pregnant if u still are yet u are seeing preston then then I dont want anything to do with you