Facebook is holding a press conference in San Francisco today, at which it is widely expected to launch a new email messaging system.
According to unconfirmed reports, including one on technology blog TechCrunch, the social network giant plans to announce a web-based email service which will offer @facebook.com email addresses.
TechCrunch predicts that a Facebook email client could prove a “Gmail killer” because of the wealth of information Facebook already holds on its users.
A Facebook email client could, for example, be tailored to take into account the friends that users most interact with – so potentially prioritising emails so that the ones users are most likely to want to read display first.
There is also potential for integration between email and its popular photos and events platforms.
The potential move would mark the latest in a series of bitter disputes between the two internet giants. Last week Google blocked Facebook from accessing a user's Gmail contacts to add to their friends' lists. Facebook responded by giving users the option to save their Google contacts and then import them into Facebook.
Google also offered all employees a bonus and pay rise last week, which analysts suggest is partly to discourage talented staff from defecting to competitor companies. A number of Google’s executives have recently left Google to work at Facebook.
