Facebook is planning to offer email service. This news is quite hot these past few days. The news on Facebook to offer email service for its users is overwhelming for most people but the words regarding this is still to be disclosed in Web 2.0 Summit this November 15 – 17.

Some people think that this is a battle between Google and Facebook. Google with its search engine and many other services including Gmail versus Facebook, a social networking site with more than 500 million active users. Probably, this kind of “battle” also draws a lot of people attention before when Google opened its Gmail service versus Yahoo!’s Y!Mail with its superiority in messenger service, and MSN Hotmail powered by Microsoft back in 1996.

Being a Gmail user from 2004, I am quite happy with their service. I was more than happy to switch from my previous provider, and glad I did. One of the most important features from Gmail that makes me happy until now is POP/IMAP feature and cleaner looks (I really hate Yahoo!). Now with Facebook plan to start its email service, I wonder what will be their strong advantages over the others. My guess is that Facebook’s mail will not be created to compete head to head with other providers. Facebook’s mail advantage will be close connectivity and tighter integration with its social networking service and between its users. 

Although I hate seeing feature updates in Facebook which seems to be more frequent lately, not to mention layout changes, and very hard to find settings, I am excited to wait for the announcement from Facebook regarding this “Project Titan” to answer my curiosity and check out the details of its features (and potentials) in a very near future (read: just hours from now).