Facebook to terminate “@facebook.com” email service

Facebook is pulling the plug on its ''@facebook.com'' email service, three years following its launch. According to the company, the email service was being terminated  due to lack of usage.

According to The Verge, Facebook was starting to send out mails to Facebook users who had signed up for the email service that they would no longer receive mails within their Facebook inboxes.

Facebook said it would forward these mails to the primary email address of users that they had on record with the social networking service.

The reason, according to Facebook was that  ''Most people have not been using their @facebook.com email addresses''. According to the social network, it wanted to make it easier for users to access their emails in one place. Facebook added that terminating the email service would only help it concentrate better on improving its mobile messaging service for everyone.

The social network had started the email service back in November 2010 as an attempt to let people see emails from friends and family in one place – a social one – rather than ''sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement''.

However, according to commentators, though the email service had been pretty basic, sending emails using Facebook never really took off.

Meanwhile, speaking at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Zuckerberg said that the mission of the social networking giant was to 'connect the world.'

Zuckerberg has plans to bring internet access, and the company's social network, to the developing world.

According to the BBC, Facebook was a member of Internet.org, a project launched last year that aimed to put billions more people online.

Making his first appearance at the MWC, Zuckerberg said that once Facebook reached a billion users in 2012, it had started to look at ways to engage more users around the world.

He unveiled a set of projects in which Facebook, alongside Internet.org partners, would work on bringing internet access to emerging markets.

According to the report, Facebook had already teamed up with Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung, among others, in an effort to lower the cost of mobile data worldwide.

A pilot project, SocialEDU, was also announced at the event. The project is aimed at bringing free online education to students in Rwanda, in which Airtel would provide free data to students using the app, while Nokia would supply handsets at reduced prices.