Monday will mark another step forward for Facebook.  The social network giant is looking to expand its communication hub even further by offering an email platform.  Expectations are that this could have a very large impact on Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and other email systems.  The impact on email marketers has yet to be addressed, but it will certainly have an impact on the display marketing in current webmail providers as consumers make a switch to the Facebook platform.

With Facebook’s functionality already replacing traditional email services, it is likely the use of Facebook will grow as it offers an email platform. It will likely put its own twist on the typical webmail platform, however details remain to be seen.  A large concern over the privacy capabilities and policies of the company may hinder the popularity of such a service.

Stay tuned to see what the big announcement on Monday entails and how usable this email client is.

In an effort to bring an advantage to Hotmail over Yahoo or Google Microsoft is completing upgrades to the free Web mail service , the changes expected to be available in July or August. According to the Associated Press, the upgrades will automatically sort incoming messages into different categories devoted to users’ key contacts and Internet social networks. It will also show a thumbnail preview of incoming photos or videos without having to open the attachment. The improvements are also going to make syncing Hotmail on mobile phones easier.

Currently Yahoo’s email service has 95 million U.S. users, Hotmail trails behind with 47 million and Gmail a close 3rd with 43 million.

In today’s era of social networking and free email address accounts, I find this very surprising that China has chosen to ban both Hotmail and Twitter. SearchEngineWatch.com points out a good point that a third of our world’s population lives in China, therefore will this ban affect active users on both Twitter and Hotmail? It’s kinda hard to believe that something like Twitter and Hotmail can be that bad that a government would eliminate it and just throw one’s freedom of speech out the window. I guess China is maybe a little behind the times with allowing people to control their own lives, so I guess this is not totally surprising to me. I wonder how those that live in China feel about this government intervention with their lives? If you live in China, I hope you get Twitter back soon!