Back in 2004 when Google went public, Microsoft felt the sting of a younger competitor. Now Google itself is feeling that sting, facing competition from Facebook. Among the social network’s efforts to lure users from Google, Facebook is now pushing it’s @facebook.com email platform (a major play against Gmail, if you ask me). I noticed today, a quietly rolled out Facebook feature which lets Facebook users forward their Facebook messages. You can forward those messages to other Facebook users, but more importantly, you can forward them to any outside email address. And who is the return address? Your @facbook.com default email, of course. 

Tech pundits proclaim the ‘death of email’ as email usage continues to decline. Facebook changes email on timelines. Does it want to be your email provider too?