Facebook's "Project Titan" Gmail rival tipped for Nov 15 reveal

The ongoing squabble between Google and Facebook looks set to ramp up another level on Monday, with the social network set to apparently launch its own "Gmail killer". That's the internal description for Project Titan, according to TechCrunch, which has heard that Facebook's November 15 event will see a web-based email platform launch complete with "@facebook.com" addresses.

According to their sources, this isn't just a rehash of the existing Facebook messaging system with the ability to pull in outside messages and POP access; instead, it's the first step in a far more comprehensive Gmail alternative. Tipped for eventual inclusion is some sort of weighting system – similar to Gmail's Priority Inbox – that uses your Facebook friends information and your history of interactions to better filter out the messages it believes you'll want to read first.

There'll also be integration with the Facebook photo sharing, events management and local deals systems, all pies in which Google has their own versions but potentially appealing to Facebook users more by virtue of the strong integration that will be possible. Not all of this is likely to appear in the first iteration of Project Titan ("Facebook Inbox" as it's been unofficially dubbed), but as we've seen recently, the social site isn't holding back in rolling out frequent updates to extend the breadth of the platform.