Gmail on Facebook… Sort of
Published by Rodney Rumford October 3rd, 2007 in Facebook, Facebook Applications.
Rating: 
Gmail on Facebook… Sort of. There was new application released a few days back called fmail. It allows you to access your gmail account through facebook. It basically works well enough, but I am not overly impressed.
It basically uses an iframe and puts your gmail into a canvas page window so that you can access your gmail. This is not really too exciting because it is not integrated to tap the social graph in any way whatsoever. I also experience a bug or 2 while testing.
The one flaw that makes this application useless for me is the fact that it does not auto-complete email addresses for me when I am sending an email. I can barely remember my own email address. Not having this auto-complete feature work makes the application useless to me. They could add features such as actually porting the content into the facebook mail messaging system… Now that would be interesting. 
A few days ago I posted about how developers should not build applications that focus on shortcomings of the core functionality of facebook. This falls squarely into that arena. But if you want to access you gmail through facebook this is a nice way to do it. My email is pretty sensitive and I question people’s trust level in a third party developer for this type of application.
For me, I will just open a new window in firefox and continue accessing gmail in that fashion. If you simply want to access your gmail account through facebook the fmail application will do the trick and I have no doubt lot’s of people will like this application. Which brings the point of I hope they have lots of servers. I also wonder if Google has an issue with this; as this might be in violation of the TOC for Gmail.
p.s. Note to all facebook developers. It is time for applications to stop using brand images that you do not own or have legal authority to use. This could save you potential legal headaches down the road; and it does not confuse consumers. Trust me when I say that over half of the people that use this application will believe it to be a google product.
Access your gmail account inside of facebook. Nice
Send Gmail: but only if you can remember the emaill address. UGGGH!
Technorati Tags: facebook, gmail, facebook gmail
How do you know that’s not exactly what these developers want?
Teresa,
Great point!
I do not know what is in the developers heads. However; this is very short sighted if that is their intention.
Many developers are leveraging existing brands; which may or may not be OK with the original brand owner.
My point here is that if you are serous about building applications in a legal and above board way; this might not be the best path to follow. Follow this path at your own risk.
Not all brands want their brand hijacked; some do. Facebook applications sometimes have a wild west feel and that is not always a good thing. My main point is that the greater developer community has an opportunity to create great products, services and user experiences.
Developers that build an application and hijack a brand do so at their own risk. I would not be surprised if facebook ends up in the middle of this issue. Much in the same way that YouTube must pull down copyright infringing material; facebook might be in this position at some point also. The difference is facebook has 1 choke point to turn of content: the application itself.
So don’t misinterpret my comments here to say that these guys should not have built this fmail application. Rather; I am merely questioning the long term issues surrounding these types of applications.
This is like the coolest thing, minus the in-built chat as of now!! Hopefully, Google should not bother them, we wil be using the same email service, but spending more time on Facebook.. leading to more and more cyberslacking!!
Thanks for the review! I’ve got to run very soon, but I wanted to comment on a few things:
- the similarity between our images and those of Google/Facebook isn’t permament; they’ll be updated in another day or so
- autocomplete is coming for the compose page, along with many, many other features and improvements
- Fmail is going to start interacting with the social graph a little bit down the road
We realize this app isn’t for everyone. Some people don’t use Gmail, some people don’t trust 3rd parties, and some people just find it more convenient to use the real thing. That’s fine. However, this is very much an ongoing project, so everyone can expect a lot of changes upgrades in the future.
Courtland,
Thanks for responding here. Glad to hear you are going to change the images.
Auto-complete will make it much more useful. Great to hear you are adding this.
Interacting with the social graph will really make the app much more engaging and potentially useful. Smart.
Keep Creating and Good Luck with this app. We all look forward to the changes.
It would be interesting to have Gmail right within Facebook, BUT I’d want to be sure no one else would see it, only me. Is this possible?
Hey guys, I also made a Facebook app that you can access your Gmail with, and Google search and and and ..
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=18877767768
or
http://apps.facebook.com/gfbmail
Brand Hijacking, very interesting point Teresa, although I don’t think Google would take it that way, they seem to be pretty cool and focused on the end result more that the nitty gritty of the brand.
Well done to Courtland Allen, very impressive!
Looking forward to December holidays
Riaan
Is the public allowed to freely use the facebook logo when talking about facebook?