Facebook Shuts Down @Facebook Email System

First time accepted submitter beaker_72 writes "The BBC are reporting that Facebook will end their email system which provided users an @Facebook.com email address in March. The official line from Facebook is that not many people have been using the service. Is that really the case or have they found it too challenging to monetize that part of their service? Did users stay away from this 'service' because they've become more savvy and recognized it for what it was — another way to harvest their data? Or is it the case that the market is currently saturated with free webmail services and there wasn't room for another one?"

Email use on the decline in general

[aussiedood]

I think it's more because email use in general is on the decline. Facebook and other social media sites are the reason as people keep in touch with that instead of emailing. Couple that with the already entrenched services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail etc and it's little wonder there was little interest.

Professional Email Address

[jellomizer]

I am sorry a Facebook.com email address is rather unprofessional, unless you actually work at Facebook.

Why is Facebook.com more unprofessional then say gmail.com?
Well for one, Facebook is in generally more informal, it is all about gossip and keeping contacts with your friends. While you use Google for real work too.

For your personal email it still needs a degree of professionalism, because that is what is going to be on your resume, and with other non-work related business contact.
Your work email isn't that good because you can change jobs and your email goes away.
The same if you use your ISP's email address.

Hotmail.com, AOL.com, Yahoo.com all still work too. However you can sometimes seem dated.

outlook.com could work too, but you seem like a Microsoftie.

I myself prefer to have my own domain name, then link it to whatever email service that I like a the time.

Re:Because people already have E-mail addresses?

[Archangel Michael]

Google+ isn't failing. Not by a long shot. It has features FB wishes it had. The issue with G+ that most people have, is that it isn't for announcing your latest bowel movement of Beibergasm of the day. Let the kiddies play on Facebook and twitter.

Re:Professional Email Address

[mlts]

I found that people judge you by your domain.

Custom domain -- professional.

@gmail/yahoo/hotmail -- hack.

You also get what you pay for. I pay for Exchange hosted E-mail for my "professional" account, and get top tier reliability... and nobody sifting through the mailbox for ads.

Of course, I do use the "free" E-mails. Might as well have all the FB stuff go somewhere, but if it is anything but junk, a "real" E-mail address is important, just like going to an interview for an IT position wearing proper clothing and not liquid latex and chain mail.