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GMail: If you think it's about space - think again!

I've been using GMail for about a week now and I can say this: it's a sweet app.  It's the best online e-mail tool I've ever used.  It rocks.  It manages my mail much better than my FREE Hotmail account has.

There you go, I've extolled the virtues of this new application; did you hear me say anything about the 1Gig of free space?  No you didn't!  That's because I don't think that this new e-mail war has anything to do with the amount of space being offered - I can buy 1 Gig of space for less than a dozen beers!

The best thing that Google have done is to give me a UI which is more responsive and features which organize my e-mail in ways that the other teams had long lost the drive and energy to do.

Over the next short period you will hear a lot about the amount of space which is being offered...

    > "Gmail offers 1 Gig free..."
    > "Yahoo gives you 100 Mb..."
    > "With Hotmail you can get 20 Gig for 20 bucks!"


Pbbbbbbbbtttttttttttt!

The real game is about how Google make it easier to read and find e-mail.  The UI is fast and responsive.  The conversational nature of the threads is a joy.  The ability to search for - and find - mail quickly and accurately is well received.

Hotmail and Yahoo be warned, if you are going to play this game then you need a better app. not just a bigger hard-drive.

8 Comments

  • Amen Darren, my thoughts exactly

  • Very true comments ;)

  • Indeed, GoogleMail has provided a refreshing change to the stock standard web based emailing systems.



    The difference between the Google offering and the other two is that Google has provided some form of innovation (in the form of a diffrent user email experience).



    For starters, the "conversations" feature is one useful addition. That's probably one thing I love about web forums. The threading feature on them. GMail's "conversations" feature is quite a similar concept.



    As well as the very fast UI. The fast UI is a part of the Google philosophy, I suppose, of keeping to a simplistic and fast design.

  • But GMail is still 100% inaccessible to blind users and users without a visual browser, right? Or does it suddenly work in Lynx?

  • Must be my bandwidth I guess, but I find the gmail UI terribly slow. Takes ages to show the mail body.

  • I also found that gmail has trouble receiving mails from yahoogroups mailing lists - but it might be yahoo's doing there.

  • > Must be my bandwidth I guess, but I find the gmail UI terribly slow



    Nish, my friend. Of all the things that you could possibly accuse GMail of you surely cannot accuse them of that. Have you actually used the Internet before? C'mon!

  • Hi Darren



    I do admit that I don't use webmail. So coming from a purely POP3 client background, I guess I would find any web-mail slow. So perhaps that comment from me was a little unfair.

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