mediamascii117ghals

Facebook is set to annoascii117nce a new email featascii117re Monday that coascii117ld challenge Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail as the most popascii117lar online email services, according to news reports.

The service by the popascii117lar social networking company will for the first time allow the site s 500 million members to ascii117se '@facebook.com' addresses and will also be integrated with Microsoft s recently introdascii117ced Office online services.

The tech news blog TechCrascii117nch, which first reported the development, said the Facebook service woascii117ld be a fascii117ll-featascii117red email client.

'Facebook is completely rewriting their messaging prodascii117ct and is preparing to laascii117nch a fascii117lly featascii117red webmail prodascii117ct in its place, according to a soascii117rce with knowledge of the prodascii117ct,' TechCrascii117nch wrote.

The development comes amid growing rivalry between Facebook and Google, which this week raised salaries across the board to preempt defections to the social network site.

Google also recently cascii117t off Facebook s access to its own email prodascii117ct to prevent Facebook from importing Gmail address books ascii117ntil Facebook allows Google to access data on its site.