Gmail vs Facebook

Tags: adsense, facebook, gmail, google content network, social widgets
Posted in Search Marketing, Social Media Optimization

We’ve been using Gmail as our corporate email platform since we started. Like many businesses, we take advantage of the free email, calendaring, task management, IM, collaboration (Wave), RSS reader and docs for our day-to-day business activities. Google has been killing it lately with some great additions to the Gmail platform making it a no-brainer communication solution for any small business or individual. With new features built in the last 18 months such as, syncing multiple email accounts, creating multiple inboxes and tabbing of the same email chain, we forgot how unorganized email used to be.

But just like most people, I also log into Facebook a few times a day to see what my friends and family are up to…see who’s on IM…check messages etc., which made me think why is Facebook not emulating Gmail? Are they crazy? If Facebook were to build a competitor to Gmail, they would be twice the size overnight. At last count, Gmail had 146 million users vs Facebook’s 300 million. No one is really sure about how much Gmail is raking in from Adsense Ads, but their main competitor, Yahoo Mail (with twice as many users) brings in about $1 Billion per year in ad revenue. I guess it just goes to show how powerful Facebook really is…even from a more traditional Web 1.0 perspective.

Tags: adsense, facebook, gmail, google content network, social widgets

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jgshort

I would tend to agree with you. I do not understand why Facebook has not created an email system. It seems they are so close with their "messaging" that email would not only help revenue, but also make the social network even more complete. The fact that I have rarely heard it discussed surprises me.
Chris

You would think creating a portal with all the basic communication functions would be a priority since they have so much integrated functionally amongst peoples networks.
Kristin Dziadul

It will be really interesting to see how Google and Facebook make out with their rivalry. With social searches on the rise and regular search engine queries (such as those on Google) are flatlining, I wonder where Google (and Gmail) will go to counteract Facebook. It was interesting to see that Facebook has about twice as many users as Gmail, which was a little surprising. Thanks for the post!
Chris

This is going to be a heavyweight fight for the ages. I agree with you, with search becoming inherently more social, you would have to think the power of Facebooks data will play a huge role at some point

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Gmail vs Facebook

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