Lions, Tigers, and MySpace with Full-fledged Webmail... Oh my!

So MySpace hasn't yet declared anything, but they have clearly been taking several steps towards launching a webmail service. Assuming significant adoption from active users, this move could make MySpace one of the largest email providers on the web.

A new feature just released by MySpace now allows users to send a message to multiple friends at once. It actually populates pictures in the "To:" line as you enter in addresses, making it easier to confirm that you're messaging the right people.

In addition to this, users can now view if their Sent messages have been read, and they can attach video files to outgoing messages.

While it is clear MySpace is increasing its email capabilities, they are still missing the big piece of offering a dedicated name@myspace.com which would allow incoming email from different applications.

Facebook has also slowly been adding features to its messaging platform, and though they also haven't communicated any definitive messages, they do want to be the central hub of social communication on the web - so the idea isn't too far fetched that they would go the webmail route.

While clearly both social networks would benefit from a 'stickiness' standpoint by enhancing their messaging and email capabilities, the benefits to launching a full-fledged webmail service for either player would be questionable. Basically all members of these social networking sites already have designated email addresses - it is normally a profile requirement to join. While messaging capability on these sites is very important, it is hard to imagine most users fully leveraging MySpace webmail when they have several other email accounts, and there are a good number of messages users wouldn't want to manage while social networking, particularly given TOS content ownership, professionalism, etc.

I think it would be an additional cost for most of these sites with little payback as people have a multitude of email addresses already, and many options for free webmail are currently out there today. If you want to email people on MySpace, you use MySpace, but otherwise it is just as easy to email everyone else from a different account.

The article I referenced for this blog can be found at the following site: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/24/myspace-inches-closer-to-offering-full-fledged-webmail-service/