When Google announced the Gmail service on March 31, I initially thought it was an April fool’s joke. But as it turned-out, Gmail was far from being a joke and infact Google was offering Gmail as part of a preview release and limited test. That meant that only a few selected ’’testers’’ would have access to Gmail and registration would be purely by ’’invitation only’’. As Google themselves did not have details on when Gmail will be made more widely available, as that depends in part on the results of the test, I was eager to try Google’s new Gmail. So, when I read on Nelson Minar’s weblog (https://nelson.monkey.org/~nelson/weblog) that he had a few spare accounts, I emailed him instantly and managed to get one.
At first look, it seems like pretty much every other Web-based e-mail service. But there are a few interesting features I haven’t seen before.
First, and I imagine Gmail’s biggest selling point, would be the 1000MB (1GB) free storage that it is offering. Right now, people who use Web-based e-mail can’t squeeze that much into the cramped 4 MB or so that Google’s competitors offer their nonpaying subscribers. But if you’re the type who would like to go years without deleting a single email you receive, Gmail is just for you!
Another feature called ’’Conversations’’ makes it easy to keep track of all related email exchanges. Each email is automatically grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation thread. People who are used to web-based forums will find this feature very helpful and intuitive. This functionality can be explained with the help of an example: say you need to remember a few things-to-do sent by e-mail. Once you find the one of the e-mail messages that is part of that exchange, Gmail displays it with related messages in the window. Gmail calls these exchanges ’’conversations.’’ When you click on that line, you’ll see all the responses to a message decked below the original, making it very easy to follow a discussion thread. Next to each message is an indication of when it was sent (Three days ago, 2 minutes ago, etc.). A link at the right of the screen says ’’expand all, ’’ and it expands all the messages that are part of a conversation.
Another feature of notable worthiness is the search functionality. You can use Google search to find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received. Finding those messages is far easier and faster than with any other e-mail program or service. Coming from arguably the World’s best search engine company, the email search function works very well. Organizing your inbox also seems different with Gmail. Gmail has no folders; instead its approach is to use labels. But after some playing around with them, Labels just seem to be a fancy word for folders. Also, there are no ’’forward’’ or ’’back’’ buttons; instead you have ’’newer’’ and ’’older’’ buttons. Gmail also differentiates between bulk mail and a single direct email with some symbols, ’’>>’’ indicates an email sent to you directly, while ’’>’’ indicates a bulk mail.
Finally, you’ve probably heard a lot of brouhaha surrounding Google’s plans to insert ads in the emails. Gmail works by serving related ads on the pages that display e-mail. These ads are identical to the text ads you’re used to seeing in on the right side of the screen after a Web search at Google.com. Google’s terms of service say its servers scan the content of e-mail messages with no human intervention and that ’’No human reads your mail to target ads or other information without your consent.’’ The process by which it serves ads is fully automated. Therefore, fears about privacy problems inherent with the Gmail service are, I think, overblown.
Some features missing from Gmail are
Access to external email accounts via POP3 protocol,
the ability to change the ’’reply-to address’’ that appears in mail you send,
option to compose emails in plain text / HTML version and
the functionality to import and export contacts from other programs such as Outlook and KMail.
At this early stage Gmail feels rather raw compared with more full-featured mail programs. The Gmail contacts list, for example, is quite lame. You can enter ’’Notes’’ for your contacts but there’s no area for entering any other data.
Gmail is a bad example of web usability. It requires both JavaScript and cookies in order to load. The biggest irritant in Gmail is that it is not compatible with all browsers. It doesn’t work on Opera! The login form is an inline frame inside the main page of the HTTPS connection. The global keyboard shortcuts appear to have been designed by vi users (j moves down, k moves up).
But these are still early days for Gmail. When Gmail gets to general release, I think people will switch en-masse from Hotmail, because of the dismal user experience it has to offer. Users of Yahoo! Mail, which is much better, also may start to switch, if only to take advantage of Gmail’s 1GB storage limit.
Screenshots:
https://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/screen1.html
https://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/screen2.html
- Abhinav Chaitanya Peddada