07/17/2004 Archived Entry: "Gmail"

Having used a total of 4, I can safely say that Gmail is very objectively the best web-based mail client out there. The first and most obvious benefit of 1 gigabyte of storage space means that your mail box will most likely never get full; no more unreceived emails because some moron decided to send you 3 megs worth of attachments.

I like how all emails are grouped into conversations. No need to create folders to store related emails in, Gmail does it for you. That’s my favorite feature. It keep the inbox so nice and tidy, instead of having 100 emails just sitting there, they’re all nicely organized for you so you know exactly where to look if you want to find something.

The auto-complete for email addresses is pretty nice, better than MS' non-firefox compatible contact list-side box and better than Yahoo's seperate-page list. I’m really impressed that there’s no need to navigate to another page to reply to an email. How ingenious is that? It seems like such a simple thing, yet no one’s done it before.

Anecdotally, I sent myself the text from a belief network from A.I. class and Google's AdSense put up newspaper related advertisements next to my emails. Very smart considering it wasn't too obvious what the belief network was about.

Gmail’s appearance also has the added benefit that the two present free email giants both decided to improve their services. Yahoo moved to 100 megabyte mailboxes and a new, sleeker interface. Hotmail is promising to soon have 250 meg inboxes (instead of the ridiculous 2.5 currently) along with a vague set of other upgrades.

Anyways, I have 1 gmail invitation to give out, who wants it?

Replies: 11 comments

I read on the Imprint that people pay money on eBay for gMail invites...

Posted by Will @ 07/17/2004 10:49 PM EST

You're lucky to get a buck fifty for it though, and it goes against Gmail's policy. 'sides, I mean, what a way to let the spammers in.

Posted by Arshwana @ 07/17/2004 11:26 PM EST

I love Yahoo, will never change...:P!

Posted by dAN @ 07/18/2004 11:19 PM EST

It's better to sell actual accounts, I'm sure there're some people out there who'd pay to have michael@gmail.com. There are a lot of Michaels, one of them must be rich and silly enough to covet that address for a sizeable amount of money.

So close minded of you dAN, I swear if you try it you'll see that gmail is clearly superior.

Posted by Rayne @ 07/19/2004 07:03 AM EST

Yes, dAN, you should really try out Gmail. If only to try it out and dump it soon after.

Try Gmail... Tryyy Gmaaaaail....

Posted by Arshwana @ 07/19/2004 08:07 AM EST

rayne, when are you going to gmail me! i think it's a wonderful setup ... other than the fact that no one gmails me ...

the only quasi-scary part is that google has computers that scan your emails and then they tailor the advertisements to what you want ... although, the biz knob in me does say that this is a good idea ... oh internal struggles!

Posted by melpie @ 07/19/2004 09:54 AM EST

I want Gmail :(

Posted by Dave @ 07/19/2004 10:13 PM EST

I won't give in...YAHOO FOREVER!!!!!!!!!

Posted by dAN @ 07/20/2004 09:32 PM EST

*floods dAN's mailbox*

Posted by Rayne @ 07/20/2004 10:30 PM EST

my passed and email addresh is not acces?

Posted by nabin pradhan @ 10/08/2004 10:24 PM EST

correct.

Posted by Rayne @ 10/12/2004 05:12 PM EST