MySpace Building Webmail to Rival Hotmail, Yahoo

Another big name is about to enter the webmail market and would be the third-largest provider the day it launches, TechCrunch reported today, citing unnamed sources.

All the reason it would be so big upon launch is because all MySpace users would be assigned an e-mail address of [username]@myspace.com. The social networking site has about 125 million active users (those who check in at least once a month), which would place it above Gmail and below Yahoo and Hotmail/Windows Live (a ComScore report from about a year ago showed Yahoo the big heavy with nearly 257 million users, Microsoft just short of 255 million and Gmail at 90 million worldwide, though those numbers are sure to have changed somewhat in the interim).

The first hint of the new service was a reassignment of some MySpace employee email addresses to [name]@myspace-inc.com, which people have noticed. This is a sign that they are preparing to assign MySpace.com email addresses to users, which is exactly how Yahoo handled the transition when they launched Yahoo Mail in 1997 - Yahoo employees moved to yahoo-inc.com email addresses. We’ve subsequently confirmed that MySpace is currently building a webmail product.

Anyone can mock MySpace as being on its way out, with Facebook overtaking it as the No. 1 social networking site worldwide last month, but 125 million active users is nothing to sneeze at.

MySpace offered a rather cryptic comment to TechCrunch that was basically a nondenial, saying its "recent collaboration with Google" was "extremely well received" and that the company would "share more details on additional product plans when we have news."

So, if MySpace were to offer its own e-mail service, would you use it as your primary webmail?