Facebook “GMail Killer” to launch Monday?

Another day, another swirling internet rumour vortex.  Well, we needed something to fill the void now all that Nexus Two business is sorted out, didn’t we?  A few months ago we got wind of an internal Facebook product codenamed “Project Titan”, which Facebook apparently refer to as their “GMail killer”.
Early this week Facebook sent out press invitations to an event on Monday, featuring some pretty prominent messaging imagery, and now various pundits have settled on the fact that Project Titan will be released to the public on Monday (it’s worth noting that these same pundits have been spectacularly wrong about the purposes of both Samsung and Facebook’s recent press conferences).
Some credence has been lent to the rumours by Facebook’s purchase of FB.com in the last 24 hours, sparking speculation the new Facebook-powered email addresses will take the form [email protected].
If indeed the rumours prove true, it might be time for Google, Yahoo and Hotmail to start worrying.  Facebook has almost 150 million more users than Hotmail, current king of the webmail hill, and it is assumed that any email addition to Facebook will integrate straight into the Facebook dashboard, meaning uptake by a great many users.
How any potential Facebook email client will differentiate itself from the uber-useful GMail remains to be seen, although the recent move to Facebook of Google Wave creator Lars Rasmussen will certainly help their cause – while Wave was ultimately killed by Google before it’s first birthday, many of the concepts contained within it were widely lauded as the future of web communication, and Rasmussen could easily find a home for those ideas in a Facebook mail client.
Again, it’s worth noting that these rumours came from one source and have gained weight purely by bouncing around the internet echo chamber (and yes, we know we’re a part of that smarty-pants) – we’ll have to wait until Monday to see how things pan out.