Google Launches Email Service - Tons O' Storage Included

from the as-expected... dept

A few months ago we talked about Google's plans to offer web-based email, and now it appears those plans have been officially announced. While many people seem to be focusing on the similarities between "Gmail" and other web-based email clients, it's much more interesting to focus on the differences, and why Google is doing this. This is clearly not a "me too" product. First off, while most web-based email providers have fairly limited storage capabilities, Google is offering a free gigabyte to every customer, and claiming that they should never need to delete a single message. And, of course, if you have powerful search, you might not ever need to delete a single message since organizing the messages becomes much easier. And, one thing Google has quite a bit of is powerful search. Lots of people have said in the past that they wish they had a "Google for their email" in order to better track down a certain message. Now it looks like Google is providing exactly that. So, what's the catch? They don't say, but my guess is that (as we wrote in the original discussion about Google email) that Google will also look at the contents of your email and try to place contextual advertising alongside your email. If it's true, we should expect people complaining about Google "spying" on their email. There's also no mention, whatsoever, about spam protection. These days, that seems to be the biggest draw of any new email system - so I'm surprised that Google isn't talking about it. The actual Gmail site is down right now, but I imagine it will be up soon. It will also be interesting to see if they take this to the next step. If Google is really trying to be the new interface for the internet and personalizing search, can you imagine doing a Google search that mixes in results from your email and the web at the same time? Update: There's a lot of discussion going around suggesting this is an April Fool's joke. It just might be. If it is, congratulations to the Google team. They've pulled off a great one.
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  • identicon
    Mike Schwartz, 31 Mar 2004 @ 5:38pm

    April Fools?

    Here's Google's press release, suspiciously dated "April 1, 2004 UTC". Google's done April Fools Day pranks in the past (PigeonRank), so I'm pretty skeptical. But if it's true, I'll gladly take a gig of their space!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Phil Ringnalda, 31 Mar 2004 @ 10:39pm

    Illusion of privacy

    Luckily, Gmail looks to be an offering on a par with PigeonRank, but for a second before I remembered what day it is (or will be shortly), the Google-searching-my-email idea triggered my gag reflex. Yahoo! Search! already has that grey bar at the top of the screen, leering down at my every search, and I always half expect it to switch to "Welcome, philringnalda! Need more results for 'herbal hemorrhoids' or did that clear up?" I think I'll pass on Google greeting me with "Welcome, Phil. I see by your inbox that your girlfriend dumped you, and you don't have a single female friend on Orkut. Would you like to see the top 10 results for 'fleshlight'?"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Janne, 1 Apr 2004 @ 1:43am

    domain registration

    They have actually registered the domain gmail.se in sweden:
    domainname.name: gmail.se
    *domainname.status: REGISTRERAT
    *domainname.regdate: 2004-04-01
    *domainname.dns.data:
    gmail.se. NS ns1.alldomains.com.
    gmail.se. NS ns2.alldomains.com.
    gmail.se. NS ns3.alldomains.com.
    gmail.se. NS ns4.alldomains.com.
    gmail.se. NS ns5.alldomains.com.
    *contract_number: 102-725-990
    *status: UPPRATTAT
    *holder: Google Inc
    *orgno: [US]000000-2006
    *contact_info.coaddr: -
    *contact_info.address: -
    *contact_info.zipcode: -
    *contact_info.postal_town: 2400 E Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View CA 94043
    *contact_info.countrycode: US
    *contact_info.phone_no: +16503300100
    *contact_info.fax: +16506188571
    *contact_info.contact: DNS Admin
    *contact_info.email: dns-admin@google.com

    if this is a joke its a very elaborate one!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mark, 1 Apr 2004 @ 9:26am

    Joke = funny?

    Google's PigeonRank was a good April Fool's joke because it was funny. They had pictures of pigeons slaving away on computers. Gmail doesn't even qualify as a joke, since there's nothing remotely humorous in the "About Gmail" page.

    If this is an April Fool's joke, the Google staff needs an emergency humor injection. It might be a hoax, but even there it's sadly short in inspiration. It's too dull to be anything but the truth.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Greg Spira, 1 Apr 2004 @ 9:35am

    No Subject Given

    I really don't see any reason to believe that this is a joke. They already have an extensive privacy policy for the service. They promise a sophisticated spam filter. They've already established that the revenue model is based on context sensitive text ads. They promise to support POP3 in the future, though they may charge for that. They've established precise rules such as requiring a login in at least once every nine months (or the account will be dissolved).

    I wouldn't be surprised if Google put this out on April 1st to have a little fun with speculation, but an April Fools joke this is not.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Bary, 7 Jan 2009 @ 5:05pm

    i need mails

    i need indians mails

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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