Dear reader,
I would have easily written the title eulogizing gmail but I am really frustrated with the recent connectivity problems I have been facing. And google doesn’t seem to be taking steps since the problem has been around for quite sometime now.
I don’t think I have much value to add here because other people may do an equally good job or even better.
However I will give my two cents.
I love these things in gmail.
1) recent support for chat from gmail
2) grouping recipients effectively creating email aliases that send to a list of people
3) Of course automatic address completion
4) The storage space of course
5) The spam filter is too good though it can easily be improved a bit more
6) Even the search has to be heuristic instead of accurate, even that can be improved
7) the keyboard shortcuts
8) Of course the automatic draft saving feature, the other day I typed a 3 hour long mail and suddenly there was a power cut. Imagine what would have happened if google had not saved for me. :-)
9) lack of graphical ads
10) Support for storing all sorts of things in contacts
11) Ability to save chats and search them along with mail
12) Ability to send and receive html mails
13) ability to preview images, and convert word and pdf documents to html for viewing
14) ability to zip and download attachments on the fly
15) the built in spell check though I have used it only once
16) the file attachment menu is really neat compared to the lousy yahoo! interface
17) simple web based interface
18) Of course, auto refresh to fetch new mails automatically
19) And then other things like support for POPS, SSMTP, auto forwarding of mails and filters (these are somewhat standard though)
20) The recent integration with a web based calendar
I think what we are seeing now is only the tip of the iceberg. Going forward I think gmail will offer much more. I would be glad if they fix the present connectivity problems. I am sure they will.
But I would say that gmail has done nothing revolutionary. At least not like google search. Because yahoo! and other competing services are doing a lousy job(still), gmail appears to be good.
If a google exec reads this review, then he can do the following. : -)
1) Provide ability to call phone numbers thro’ VoIP by clicking at the number ( I think they have already planned it)
2) Integrated gmail notifier for UNIX systems
3) Provide emails as rss feeds or thro’ other distribution mechanisms as a push model rather than a pull model
4) Improve on existing search and spam filtering, they should be able to filter words like poorn, shouldn’t be too difficult
5) Build an outlook like rich interface without sacrificing the beauty of simplicity(easier said than done! )
6) Automatically logout when I connect from somewhere else
7) Remove wrong email IDs when that ID bounces
8) Provide procmail like mail processing functionality
9) ability to schedule the sending of mails at a particular date and time
10) Of course, support the IMAP protocol for retrieving of mails and headers
11) Support PGP style mails natively(secure email)
12) Build a dynamic spell checker like gaim or MS Word
Well, clearly gmail has lot of scope for improvement.
They are using the latest fascination of the silicon valley, Ajax but I don’t think they have done a good enough job of exhausting its possibilities.
Well, that is it then.