Slashdot Mirror
Google to Launch Free Mail Service?
prostoalex writes "The New York Times article on Yahoo and Terry Semel's management (soul stealing form required) mentions Google preparing "to offer a free e-mail service, people close to the company said, in a bid for Yahoo's most important source of loyal customers"."
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
If they'll provide POP or IMAP access without having to pay for it like Yahoo!, I'm sure it will be quite succesfull.
thisnukes4u.net
If they can avoid yahoo's extremely bloated interface and stick with google's simplicity for their webmail, the idea might be a winner.
Of course they will need to invest a lot of effort into spam filtering for the service to be of any value.
$ whois googlemail.com
[snip]
Registrant:
Google Inc.
(DOM-302458)
2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View
CA
94043 US
Domain Name: googlemail.com
Registrar Name: Alldomains.com
Registrar Whois: whois.alldomains.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.alldomains.com
Administrative Contact:
DNS Admin
(NIC-1467103)
Google Inc.
2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View
CA
94043 US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506188571
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin
(NIC-1467103)
Google Inc.
2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View
CA
94043 US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506188571
Created on..............: 2001-Jul-18.
Expires on..............: 2005-Jul-18.
Record last updated on..: 2003-Dec-30 15:39:37.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.GOOGLE.COM 216.239.32.10
NS2.GOOGLE.COM 216.239.34.10
NS3.GOOGLE.COM 216.239.36.10
NS4.GOOGLE.COM 216.239.38.10
Alldomains.com - The Leader in Corporate Domain Management
$
probably quickly snatched up. booble@google.com
Coming from Google its pretty much a given the tried and tested 'Free Email' sector will see some new and exciting innovations.
However, the KISS method should defintley continue to apply for Google.com - the moment it begins to mimick Yahoo or MSN is the moment it will have lost its edge.
If google starts a mail service, is it really to take on Yahoo? I have a pretty good opinion of Google for most of their decisions and I find it hard to beleive that they would go out and try to attack another company.
Maybe I'm naive, but I beleive if Google has decided to go after new business, it would be because they decided to move into a new market, not because they wanted to act in malace against another company.
I wonder whether Google mail will index my mails. sounds spooky..
Hey, that's my password you are typing
Step 1: Google takes over search engines
Step 2: Google takes over webmail services
Step 3: Tomorrow - the world!
What next? The Google OS?
Google was great, but "advertisers" figured out how to game it long ago and I don't think the folks at google are interested in evolving the concept much further. I have serious reservations about MS being able to actually compete with their technology (they can't even figure out what's on their own damn tech support site) but I really wish SOMEONE would do some "duplication and evolution;" maybe THAT would light a fire under some asses at google.
We really have to admit that Google is in decline. In all likelihood, there may be only one more (or possibly two) years before Google goes away forever.
I know it is now almost a mantra set in stone that "Google is dying". Unfortunately, the abuse of that fact by trolls has obscured the truth, that truth being that Google really is dying.
My main reason for moving away from Google to MSN Search has been twofold. First, to avoid the constant IPO uncertainties. And secondly, to investigate more promising and viable entries in the search engine sweepstakes. Google is no longer a legitimate player, I'm sorry to say.
I remember reading about a year ago on one of the google related stories here on slashdot, that the reason google has been very successful is that they've done one thing and done it well, rather than trying to be a portal and integrate everything. Specifically, one poster said that if google ever offered an email service (and implying that that's an unlikely possibility) he'd ditch google for searching and google would soon degenerate into just another website with a Dubious Business Model. Follow up posters agreed with that comment. So, the time has come now. I ask the people who felt that way last year, are you sticking to your decision/analysis? If not, what has changed?
...should be a Google IM based on Jabber! That would rock!
If it can go wrong it wnetscape: Segmentation Fault, Core dumped
register billgates@google.com ?
I daresay spammers have had all weapons ready to lock on to the *@googlemail.com target since 2001. Frankly, I can't see many /. readers returning to a free webmail account ever again - even Theirs.
Everybody and their dog is offering free webmail. What's so special about googlemail?
Can't wait for this to happen. Currently I have to use gotmail to fetch my hotmail accounts then forward them to my ISP via an hourly cron job. With Google doing mail, I'm sure they will add IMAP support and be a little more "User Friendly" to us Linux users. (Not to mention No ads !)
Google Eyes New Email Service, Expansion on Monday January 19, @04:02PM
Posted by simoniker on Monday January 19, @04:02PM
from the ultimate-internet-moogles dept.
GillBates0 writes "According to a CNN/Reuters story, Google is developing a service to attach its lucrative keyword-based advertising to email: ''I'm sure Google is getting more and more concerned about locking in users. It wouldn't surprise me if they did something very sophisticated with e-mail,' said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, who tracks the industry.' Apparently, Google has purchased an e-mail management software maker and registered the domain name googlemail.com. The article also speculates that Google is slowly on the way to becoming a full-fledged portal, with the gradual addition of more and more portal-like features like Froogle."
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I already suggested the benefits for both Google and mozilla.org for Google to replace their IE Toolbar with an official Google branded Firefox. If they don't want to make their mail service freely available through IMAP or POP3 then they could do what Netscape did in NS 7.x and make their mail servers accessible to their own branded mozilla client. Although it would be nice if Google mail would be based on Thunderbird rather than the suite.
Hotmail is available through Outlook Express, so it'd be nice if Google did something similar without the tie in to MS products.
1) Create awesome, sleek search engine + addiction
2) Muck it up with email service links and ads
3) ???
4) Profit
(like by analyzing the content of the email)
Personally I don't want Google reading/analysing my e-mail. Even if is just some algorithm.
... or should it be GNU/Google Emacs?
now all your source are belong to us.
If you have a fairly advanced toolset of software knowledge, you can download YahooPOPs! over on the SoresForge page.
What is it? Well, YahooPOPs! is an open-source initiative to provide free POP3 and SMTP access to Yahoo! E-mail accounts. It works in both Windoze and Unix.
What it does is emulate a POP3/SMTP server and enables popular email clients like Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, Mozilla, IncrediMail, Calypso, etc., to DOWNLOAD AND SEND emails from Yahoo! accounts.
It's amazing, bro. I had NO idea it'd even work. I had to download it to believe it. There are also other similar programs out there for MSN, Lycos, etc.
No self-respecting webmail user should be WITHOUT it.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Here ya go. (The same article is also available in The Ledger)
Step 1: Google takes over search engines Step 2: Google takes over webmail services Step 3: Tomorrow - the world! Step 4: Profit!!!!
I think that what Yahoo did wrong (boy, I'll bet there are tons of analysts starting sentences the same way) was to try to make a mega-page, to rely on some data that was human-indexed rather than entirely machine-produced, and to fall behind technologically.
Google doesn't do this.
* Google is very spartan. I'm glad to see that all the web designers that thought that fancy web pages are what people want have been shown to be wrong. Excuses like "oh, this is for a 'distinctive feel'" or "we won't look up-to-date without Flash", etc, just don't measure up. Google works well on all browsers, has pages that download quickly, and renders very rapidly. The only large image used is the ever-changing "Google" logo, which gives folks a fair amount of enjoyment (well, *I* get more of a kick out of it than any other single image of that size each day). Their ads are text-based, and there are few links on each page. Their page works well in any browser, including lynx. Spartan is in -- web development has matured, and garish pages with faux metal bits and hard-to-find imagemap-based links are out. Functionality matters.
* All the data that Google presents is produced by a computer, not an array of humans (except for the Directory, which is from dmoz.org, not Google-paid people. They can scale up as far as they want by just increasing their processor power. All their people just figure out how to get the computer to do the right thing. Sure, in the short term that can be a bit less efficient, but it's a big win in the long term.
* Google doesn't fall behind when it comes to technology. Google is rabid about recruiting PhDs working with automated data mining. They are constantly adding neat little features to find, interesting new experimental searches (Google Sets is my favorite), and do an impressive job for a group of people that have hordes of people trying to beat the engine constantly and are avoiding using any human-based indexing.
May we never see th
Let's look at the facts:
First, there was Google. Beautiful searching. Love it dearly.
Then, there was Google cache. Beautiful, wonderful idea. Love it dearly.
Then, there was Google image searches, and News, and it was all still good.
But adding free mail to it? I'm starting to worry that our at-one-time all-simple, all-powerful, all-effective search engine is becoming (possibly?) another Yahoo? They're already the most widely-used search engine (by far!), but why offer free mail? Leave that to the low-life such as Microsoft and Yahoo.
Don't get me wrong, Google's seemed to manage everything quite smoothly thus far, and is still a wonderful site to use for everything they've made (besides searching, I use image search and the news listings & searches quite often). But free mail is quite a big undertaking...will they be able to manage it and still stay as good as they are?
I beleive if Google has decided to go after new business, it would be because they decided to move into a new market, not because they wanted to act in malace against another company.
That's how every company and every business works in this country. It is for that very reason - direct competition - that we have so many awesome, cool products and services. At the end of the day, consumers want the best value for their dollar, the most choices, the most convenience. It's what a free market is all about.
So consider this, if Google creates an email service, and Yahoo starts to see some of its customers switch to Google, then Yahoo will be in a position to either a) do nothing, or b) offer something new to make Yahoo an even better service than it was before.
At the end of the day, if both services are doing a really good job, then they'll split the user base. But if one is really doing a better job than the other, that one will "win" the majority (usually). End-users will have more choices for web-based email, and we'll possibly see other services created to entice us to switch services.
The point is, they have to be original if they want someone new to notice them, and webmail sure ain't original.
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
I wonder why Yahoo has'nt shut it down yet.
To the poster (here) who talked about how Google has done one thing, and done it well - yes- that is very correct. However, that was back in 2000. Searching is something Google is undoubtedly "the daddy" off. They have moved on - groups, image search, directory, news - they are all at the top of their respective content leagues in terms of quality and service.
Whether or not the NYT article is correct or not doesn't really matter. The plain fact is that Google faces increases competition, and they need to offer more services to maintain their position as number 1. A Google email service is A) cool B) useful for people. As posters before has said, it would probably come quite feature laden, and thus be popular.
loismustdie@google.com
On a serious note: google is very tight lipped about what services they will be launching (until after they launch/beta) so not sure how credible these rumblings are...
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
ah and then the day will come when my mail box will be cluttered with spam from googlemail.com. oh joy
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
...with that kind of name recognition, and google's technical ability and design sense, I might finally be able to persuade my family not to use hotmail.
(sigh)
There is a huge difference between will and could.
Admin's could read my e-mail but most likely will not. Especially if they have some privacy policy against it.
The parent post is pointing out if Google uses targeted advert's they WILL read my e-mail.
If I decide to subscribe to porn, and then suddenly whenever I got to google.com or google mail I have to deal with porn adverts. Well that isn't going to look too good at work or home.
Or what if I get an e-mail regarding AIDS, and then I see adverts for AIDS treatment when I visit google, other may see this, realise I have AIDS and then discriminate against me.
So no, I am not ashamed of what software 'thinks' about me, but I may be adversly affected by the ad's it displays.
I use alltheweb when not using google. Between those two I generally find what I want.
Alltheweb is a bit more international than google (I believe its hosted in Europe somewhere) and is owned by Overture who sells google lots of search info.
About us page here.
They also seem to have a knack for lowering the importance of weblogs, which seems to be a big issue with some people nowadays.
There are still some things they have not done that they could.
If google does what it is famous for...being innovative and simple..with spam filtering I will drop yahoo email like Dr. Atkins dropping a hot potato.
Steve
did you know that googlesucks.com?
Search "Groups" to find:
1 2. htm
Drake (capatan@googlemail.com)
John (John@googlemail.com)
And GOOGLE had to fight to get the domain back:
(Dated: August 18, 2002)
http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/1147
I might switch ! Go google go ! :) Say that fast 5 times in a row :P
i guess there will be a bit of struggling for cool email addresses ;)
like search for anything, and the first result page is filled with www.site.com/exact_search_term.html go to that site, and it's just a list of links, ads, and stuff.
HTTPS access to the webmail and integrated, seamless PGP support would be great and years ahead compared to major competitors.
They kept the newsgroups (rebranded as Google Groups), but phased out the email service.
I've used Google since Infoseek ceased to be the best, and like everyone else, I've noticed the gradual reduction of relevancy as people figure out how to scam Google for higher placement. Reading about this, I had an idea that is probably not original: Could a search engine be set with Slash-style moderation code, so irrelevant results could be modded down by annoyed users? Is there an engine that does this already?
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
If google really wants to do something worthwhile with email, they should go out and purchase hushmail. I happen to be a big fan of their service (web based PGP compatible email!) but I loathe how *few* people actually use encryption in email. If a powerhouse like google offered not just webmail, but *encrypted* webmail, I bet that the conversion rate would be pretty mind-blowing and voila, the huge bump encryption / PGP / GPG needed to get to the point of critical mass.
Can you imagine a world in which you can say to someone: "what you mean you don't encrypt your emails?" Please make it so google!
Imagine Google mail applying this capability to help you draft a personalised reply message for each mail, when needed.
This should morph Turing Test a step further.
--
I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?"
Hey, that's my password you are typing
Yay i can get another email address! as if i dont have enough with linuxmail, hotmail, yahoo, yourmom.com, playcs.com, etc. just more places for spam to go
... so long as you don't mind extensive advertising.
Offtopic, but that does look like an indian open-source project.
http://images.google.com and search with any of the well known Playboy playmate model names.
Linux at home
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
A javascriptlet there will allow you to generate a totally random login for viewing the article. Every Slashdotter which accesses the article should create a new random login in turn, filling their database with useless random login id's that are only used once and then forgotten about.
Google will probably keep the front page the same, "simple". I imagine that will launch something like MyYahoo! where you can customize your own page and access your e-mail from there.
Why's Google wasting its time with an ancient idea like this one when there are truly innovative things out there, waiting to be done?
You mean like when they decided to go for the ancient idea of "internet searches"? Altavista, Yahoo etc. weren't exactly whimps when Google came along. I'm not quite sure how Google wants to do better on this one though, free email is pretty much the same boilerplate thing everywhere.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And a thousand nerds stand by ready to be the first to get gandalf@googlemail.com and billg@googlemail.com.
-Colin
It would make sense if they offered free and paid hosting with their expertise in large indexing.
Yes they bought a company int blogs, don't remember which one, but full or limited hosting would certainly be popular.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Google still doesn't have a video and audio search. I guess you could use the file search for it, but its just not the same, as my porn videos might be DivX or XviD...
Well, maybe some personalised features. Results depending on your location.
:)
Maybe, identity. Mail back suitable search results.
But after all. I would sign in. I like google. Its like saying, hey, we are behind you, google. We like you, google
We are in your box.
I use yahoo email, as well as yahoo messenger and have for a long time. The thing is, I never go to yahoo.com for anything. I ignore the little Yahoo insider thing that pops up, I never search with them, I never click on any ads in email. In fact, I only use that email addy for crap that I sign up for online. My real is email is from my own domain, that I never use for signing up to anything. Their thougths of lock-in are dubious. Yahoo could disappear to tomorrow and I would use linuxmail.org for my garbage mail, and MSN, AIM, Jabber, or IRC for chat and never once miss them. Thanks for the free shit, but maybe you should pay more attention to what your services are actually used for. In a word...crap.
I can see a lot of scams making use of the service if the email addresses end "@ google.com"
The possibilities to scam people to "sell" higher pagerank posing as a Google employee, for instance.
However if the URL googlemail.com is for the mail service this shouldn't be an issue.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I agree, and I've seen some [laughable,piteous,ignorant] moderation here. However, if it were limited to RELEVANCE, it might still work even if subjective. Find what you're looking for? Mod it up. Misleading header? Mod it down.
Just a thought. I'm mostly wondering whether it's been done already.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Yeah, that might work if you timed it - assume that if a given IP doesn't return to Google in foo seconds, the search was successful. Then you just have to tweak foo for best results. And if you based it on IP, you wouldn't have to depend on cookies.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
It's always bothered me that it takes 10ms to search the entire web but 10 minutes to search my mailstore. People are probably trying to go through their old emails just as often as they're looking for something on the web. Google has said that their mission is to find the answer to all of your questions and to do that you definitely need access to people's mail.
It also gives them a much needed source of stickyness. As easily as people switched from AltaVista to Google, they can switch from Google to something else. But mail is hard to switch.
There are tons of posts here questioning whether Google is losing their way by doing this, but I don't see what the problem is... Mail doesn't have to be complicated, even with integrated virus checking and spam killing software. Just because hotmail and yahoo are extremely bloated, doesn't mean that Google's will be the same way.
Personally, I hope that they will allow free POP access. That's what got me to open my Geocities mail account, which later turned into Yahoo. Then they made it a pay service and I stopped using it.
I suppose it is folly to make a serious reponse to a post modded "funny", but I should point out that the OS that Google uses to run their servers (a *highly* modified GNU/Linux variant) is usually reffered to as the Google OS since it was designed by them specifically for their server farms (I think anyway). Also, I believe there is a GFS (Google File System, or Gordon Food Services - an entirely unrelated business) which is the distributed file system run at - of course - their server farms.
I don't know how many people check their M$ hotmail account and other web accounts using Office XP Outlook.
I got a feeling M$ will purposely create some Office XP bug to make googlemail incompatible with Outlook. This is the typical M$ strategy up against any competition.
Not duplication, revolution is the notion you want: Google was successful because its founders believed in a completely new paradigm, that graph-based methods (PageRank, HITS) could outperform dusty (but effective) vector-space retrieval.
Many people have a shady intuition of what information retrieval really is ("Um.. yeah, you look the pages up in which the keywords occur"), trivializing the area. Go to any top-500 company and try their site search if you want to have a good laugh.
What we need is once more something completely different. It still holds that there is more than one way to do it!
One way is to go ahead and build a distributed indexing scheme (see my earlier posting on this theme), borrowing conepts from SETI@home or Freenet, because an index that cannot be located anywhere cannot be controlled. It might also be a better test-bed for large-scale experiments, but where only few developers want to try out new algorithms ("at home"), using the distributed indices built on distributed, donated diskspace around the world.
I thought *they* were profiling me correctly when I started getting 'Penis enlargement' mail (not that I have a problem personally, swear to God) but then I also started getting 'Increase Bust Size' in the same Inbox. Did *they* just fire somebody that was keeping tabs on my personal surfing/emailing habits, or have the algorithms not evolved sufficiently in this case?
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0@google.com.
You can go ahead and try to send email there now, but I haven't quite got it activated yet. Soon though, soon.
--
RumorsDaily
We really should have a GNU toolbar that points to a free search engine!
Let's call it the GNUbar... ;)
AlltheWeb Audio Search
Extrapolate this to any words that somebody would be willing to pay to watch, regarding politics, religion, cults, music, or whatever other creepy corners your paranoia guides you to.
The important difference between targetting ads to web pages vs email is that web pages are designed for wide publication. The contents of email is usually meant to be private.
Ok, I'm a software developer, I've got a bookshelf full of cryptography books and one lying at my bedside. But... until a mail client or webmail service makes encrypted email just as easy as regular email it's not worth my time.
By "easy" I mean that I should literally have to do nothing to use it. If I have to create a keypair it should be when I sign up, and I shouldn't have to ever need to think about it again. I should have a "send encrypted" button beside the "send" button or a preference. I shouldn't have to get my friends to mail me their public keys, the service/client should obtain them automatically somehow. Essentially I shouldn't have to do a single thing more difficult than today's webmail services.
I really don't have anything top secret enough to say to my friends that I would find value in encrypted mail. The huge inconvenience that is the current state of encrypted mail just isn't worth it to me... and it definitely won't be to my mum, or non-tech friends.
However, if someone can do encrypted mail without any added inconveniences, I will be the first to sign up.
Maybe they will just add a free e-mail service to blogger...
it makes sense that they would want to draw more users to their blogger service and provide more web-services through that brand (and in turn sell more ads).
I personally cannot see them bloating up google.com, but you never know.
They also seem to have a knack for lowering the importance of weblogs, which seems to be a big issue with some people nowadays.
Here's a simple way to get most blogs out of your results in google or any other search engine (personally I use Gigablast as my primary):
Type search query plus "-blog"
Et voila!
Of course it can't help it if some pages are ranked high because they are linked from blogs, but I don't think that anything from the user-side can change that.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Imagine you receive some attached pics from your girlfriend, Natalie Portman, in which she's naked and petrified. (you at least can imagine:) You wouldn't want Google's algorithms to say something like: "nice boobs"
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
If I were Google, the first thing I'd do is kill off that first search result, no sense in helping the competition.
Will the Google's mail service have "I feel lucky" button instead of the "To:" field?
spam the hell out of your 'free' mailbox and then bitch at you that your using up the space.Then sell your real email address to the rest of the spamworld goons.
Yahoo tracks your clicks, I don't like that redirect thing, it's much more intrusive than google and the others that make direct links.
And I'm pretty sure Yahoo is using Google engine again (I get the same results).
"In many ways, Yahoo's main rival is Google, started five years ago by two brainy Stanford graduate students who believed, against conventional wisdom, that sophisticated computer science could produce better Web searches."
I don't know about anyone else, but CS would be the first place I would look to for search technology. In the department I'm in these is a section called Information Retrieval which seem to be mostly concerned with this type of thing. Surely things haven't changed too much since Google came along.
You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
Step 1: Steal mindshare (superior search engine) Step 2: Steal customer base with webmail (formerly known as '????') Step 3: Profit And for the Google OS, they should call it GogglOS, and when it crashes, they could say, "My eyes! My EYES!! THE GOGGLOS DO NOTHING!!"
Don't be telling me I need to learn to use google... how 'bout you learn to read a post before replying.
This is not an interesting feature. I dont want this.
I hate it too. However, Yahoo's Search Page is not nearly as cluttered.
given that yahoo mail hasn't been responding lately, i'd be glad to switch my spam-trap account elsewhere (that's about the only thing yahoo mail is good for - give that address to e-commerce sites who sell it onward to the spammers of the world)...
REPORT ALL OBSCENE MESSAGES TO YOUR POTSMASTER
google mail user's personal messages mysteriously showing up in google search results...
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/19/20152
The reasons Google could/should launch an email service is the brand that they have created. As all the posts here corroborate, the Google as a brand is respected both in the tech community as well as the main stream, which is one of the reasons it is so successful. So even if it launches a free email service, its own branding power, regardless of features will draw many users there.
Now if Google reigns in its business and marketing departments to keep the mail free of extraneous features and ad-attacks err. advertising, it will be more successful than Yahoo! and/or Hotmail purely by that feature alone. However if it becomes another advertising saturated free email service it will just be another player in the market not a dominant one.
The reason that Yahoo! and MSN have turned into bloated portals is the same reason that Google is drawn create other services (froogle, images, ect.) to keep users in and use the power of their brands to hold users within their marketing umbrella. It's only too easy to add links and 'portal' type features to any popular web page for commercial reasons, which is the trap that Google must not fall into.
Interested in Sports with a brain? --> http://dispatchesofj.blogspot.com/
According to a friend of a friend (I know, I know), Google email will place targeted advertisements in the email based on the content of the email! They plan to convince everyone that the data will not be kept, stored, or used after the ad has been placed. Why would people choose google over yahoo, hotmail, etc? They are offering 1GB of storage for free! Yes, one gigabyte for every user.
Google already took googlegear.com from its originial owners. I started buying from them because googlegear.com was always with a few percent of the lowest price for computer hardware on several of the best-price-search websites. The first time I saw the site, I looked for anything that suggested they were connected to Google-the-Search-Engine, but the fonts and everything else was very different. A disclaimer might have been nice, but may have gained them the trouble with Google even sooner.
Googlegear.com sent all customers a notice that their web site was changing to ZipZoomFly.com. Awful name, but they still have the best prices, and friends have returned parts easily. (One bought an Intel CPU and a motherboard for an AMD processor. I was there to help put it together, saw the shipping list, and told him it would not work.)
Now, WHOIS Googlegear.com shows the same information as the other Google sites. The site opens a page on google.com explaining the name change, with a link to the new site. It looks like Google was just protecting their trademark, and is not taking advantage of the goodwill from the previous owners.
WHOIS ZipZoomFly.com has contacts with email addresses @googlegear.com. I wonder if the mail is being redirected by Google, or if these addresses are broken.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Let's hope it will have a spam filter as good as yahoo's, then I am happy to have two email address. I am tired of Slash.mail, really.
... will Google mail be RELIABLE??
Because... Yahoo mail is not. I don't know what it's doing right now, but a couple years ago they had their servers misconfigured, and some were losing 100% of all mail, incoming and outgoing. OTOH, they do still offer their "old" webmail interface, which works well enough in old browsers.
Conversely, my Earthlink mail is as close to 100% reliable as it gets (and it's regularly crosschecked with another account, so I *know* what's supposed to arrive). However, ELN webmail has become extremely bloated and very browser-specific.
(We won't even discuss what Hotmail has become...)
Point being, if Google can offer RELIABLE, lightweight, works-with-any-browser email, they'll attract a customer base in no time flat. And I wouldn't mind being shown *TEXT ADS* occasionally on my webmail page -- they don't eat much, and unlike other advertising, they're often *useful*.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Partly its for tracking, buts its also to prevent spoofing. That redirect is signed so they know exactly where you are being linked to, and they can audit this in their records. Sorry, this is Yahoo looking out for users, not penalizing them.
The redirects are signed. Change the target URL and Yahoo knows there is a spoof. This is a service to users.
but when Google adequiared DEJA, they've dropped this feature. Granted, DEJA had some deficiencies, and in particular usenet group search was atrocious. Now of course deja search is excellent, and so e-mail is coming back as well. Nice ...Since I spend lots of time on deja, it will be quite natural for me to use google e-mail as well (and probably many of the former deja users will do the same)
Don't be so naive though to think Google is a room of computers. When people write in to complain about kiddie porn, removal requests, etc, this must be handled by a person, just like at any search site.
They better make sure that their filters can
be set up to automaticly *delete* all bulk
e-mail, including Swens, instead of moving
them to another directory that counts against
your quota!
Well Yahoo and Microsoft are attacking Google, so why should Google not fight back? I think it would be a brilliant move.
I am not worried about the Google Homepage ever being cluttered, it just won't happen. Google has many services that are not listed on their homepage ( http://www.google.com/options/ ) but that come up when a user needs them in the search results.
Also Google results have been worse recently because just before they added the billion pages, an update messed up giving spam websites an advantage. It's getting better, but they still haven't completely fixed it.
Google bought DejaNews (remember that?),
and Deja had a free e-mail service. I
LOVED that one. It had lots of neat
features. Google kept it for a few
months after taking over and then killed
it off. If they do offer one, again,
then they should make it like the old one!
He's really trying to search for "Paris Hilton Video", but didn't want to admit it.
GENERAL PUBLIC SIGNATURE (GPS) Any replies (derivatives) of this post must also use the GPS
I wonder if this will integrate into their sponsorship with Orkut? Maybe it's lending them some ideas about how people interact that will let them introduce some new features into webmail to make it more appealing...
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. -Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
What about Apple's battery replacement plan? I'm assuming you're talking about the iPod.
I'm really getting tired of people spreading FUD about iPod batteries. You can freaking replace them yourself for $50, or you can pay apple $100 to do it for you!
Sorry, pet peeve.
It will be great to finally see an alternative to Yahoo! and Hotmail for free web-based email addresses. My hope is that Google implements a system to dowload messages from POP3 (and possibly IMAP) servers, just like the old-school Hotmail accounts.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
I did have a e-mail adres at deja-news (/mydeja). It was swallowed by google and they discontinued the e-mail service.