Here is an article talking about this new messaging service:
The fastest growing social network, Facebook, now wants to incorporate its network hub to include email services. With already 500 million users, Facebook’s entrance into the messaging service industry could lead to a new era for modern messaging. With its new email services, Facebook has directly challenged the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo.
In fact the co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, stated that they are trying to “push the way people do messaging more towards this simple, real-time, immediate personal experience.” This seems to be their competitive advantage; the idea that email services can be more personal and intimate to the users.
While doing some research, I found that the announcement of Facebook’s new plan directly affects Gmail, who recently suffered an outage and are facing difficulties retaining customers. Since over 70% of the current Facebook users use the current messaging function, with the new email service Facebook can expect to influence these people into switching from Microsoft, Yahoo etc to Facebook.