Slashdot Mirror
The Webmail Wars
latif writes "Much of the excitement around Gmail has centered around its innovative
interface, but a pretty interface is hardly Gmail's biggest contribution.
Gmail's real contribution to webmail is its innovative business model. The new
business model is what's allowing Gmail to offer 1 GB storage quotas, and still have an expectation of making money. Of
course, Microsoft and Yahoo have noticed this too, and one can reasonably expect them to move
their webmail services to the new model. An interesting battle is shaping up
between the big three webmail providers, and my article "The Webmail Wars" analyzes
some possible scenarios and outcomes."
As I have previously mentioned on tech-recipes, I honestly don't see how there is a real war between these webmail services.
Gmail kills them all in spam blocking and space...
Plus, now... they have free pop as well.
The privacy issue is the only thing that has been preventing my complete switch over.
I still find webmail an interesting phenomenon. I know there are millions of users out there. And I myself find it quite handy when I'm traveling. Being able to hop on any computer, open up a browser, and check my mail is good. But...I still don't use it that much. I have a Yahoo account (I think), I may have done a Hotmail account way back in the day, and I have my Gmail account. But even with those, I use my other accounts MUCH more. I liken it to AOL...I don't fully understand why someone would use AOL when they can get a much less intrusive and cluttered way to get to the Internet, yet they have millions of users. Same goes with my thoughts on webmail...why would someone pay for Internet service and then opt to use Hotmail?
The only answers I can think of is to have a "safe" spot for addresses where you may end up getting a lot of spam. Or "secret" accounts. Or multiple accounts. And that's why I find these webmail wars fascinating...wars are being fought over this with the major players in the industry over something so seemingly unimportant (as say compared to OS wars, browser wars, etc)
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
The primary reason google 'scanning my email' doesnt concern me is that google has a reputation for being honest. That google has attained that reputation gains absolutely nothing for Yahoo (spammer, spam supporter) or MS (convicted monopolist)
I trust google several orders of magnitude further than I would trust Yahoo or MS. I would *never* use a hotmail or yahoomail account for anything other than a throwaway - yet I have in fact started using a gmail account for normal email.
Anyone who lists an @yahoo.com or @hotmail.com email address anywhere even remotely business-related is showing that they are 'part of the consumer herd' - an @gmail.com address, on the other hand, suggests an air of elitism.
If they follow this model, Im sure Yahoo and MS's ads will be flash and javascript popup ridden - Gmails ads are much less intrusive.
Google knew exactly what they are doing - they arent looking for mass market share of morons.
gmail supporst non-western characters I just found out. Yahoo does not(despite the fact that yahoo.co.jp for example does). Something to think about in an increasingly interconnected world.
Monstar L
There are many other factors too..
Due to the nature of hotmail and yahoo, and the lack of searching, even deleting 50 emails is difficult. Even worse, the spam detection on hotmail is very unreliable (about 50-75% accurate), meaning its very difficult to manage emails.
The 200megs storage limit on hotmail can hold about 4000 emails, and since its difficult to handle even 50, I'd hate to leave my inbox unattended for a week.
Overall, the reason gmail is succeeding isn't just the business plan, but the features make it more usable then hotmail or yahoo. In my opinion though, yahoo is still doing a much better job then hotmail, with its features.
Having a hotmail account has no real benefits (it has the smaller space, you can get a passport without a hotmail account, they tend to get very spammy, and theres no "hotmail groups" which needs a hotmail account to sign up) and because of all the email addresses, its very hard to end up with a remotely decent email on it. Gmail has started to suffer the same problem, but I severely doubt it will ever suffer it as bad as hotmail or yahoo (yahoo for instance has different domains such as auzy@yahoo.com will accept the same emails as auzy@yahoo.co.uk, but someone might not realise it and sign up for both with different ID's, halving the total domains).
Its not just about advertising, its about the usage. Everyone has a hotmail account they leave around for junk.. Which means that they are just gathering emails at the moment costing Microsoft in Bandwidth costs.
Sure, email will change. It might not even be recognizable as email anymore. But there is still a need on the internet for some type of "mail" system, where both parties don't have to be online. Furthermore, there is still a need to contact people you might not know.
For instance, I had to recently contact a prof. at a university. He had no idea who I was, as we had never met or exchanged mail. Sad day for me if the new system only accepts mail from known people.
Think a little.
Join the gmail-invite-board on Google Groups 2 (groups-beta.google.com). It's something I set up when I was looking for invites. Basically, you post that you need invites or that you have them, and people give you invites or give their e-mail addresses. It's that simple.
Also, look around Slashdot, and copy the URLs from those GMail Invite Trolls (the ones that LINK to Last Measure, but have five invite URLs in their link text). These might be OK, but keep in mind, the troll will have your new e-mail address.
Sign up here: http://isnoop.net/gmailomatic.php
I know it works, as I just sent 3 invites to their email address, and within 10 minutes someone had already activated the first one. This is a really cool service, and since it's automated, it's easy.
http://www.fsckin.com/
I remain disappointed with gmail.
It still won't open messages in a new window. Is it so unnatural to want to view the message index in one window and open the messages in new windows while retaining my view of the index? I mean, some of us can chew gum and walk at the same time.
On Yahoo, I can do this simply by middle clicking links. Not on gmail. Javascript and frames hell prevent it. As if that makes it "okay".
I still can't find an option to get a traditional chronological view of my inbox. Gmail only seems to provide their threaded view. Many times, that view is not optimal.
No folders. They do not support folders. Sure, they support filters. But I can't use a filter to put mail from a mailing list into a folder. This is good how? What alternative to folders are they providing?
No option to show full headers by default.
5% of the time, gmail says it is unavail when I try and login. A retry gets me in.
It is great as an inbox for registering accounts, etc. But aside for the benefit of the 1GB causing everyone else to raise their quotas, it ain't that great.
Whenever I sign up a non-technical user for a web mail account (so I don't have re-setup Outlook and hear how they lost all their email everytime their hard drive crashes), I always sign them up for a Yahoo account. Hotmail just plain sucks because they open links in email in a frame. Come on now - they've had that "feature" in there for years. When are they going to get rid of it? I thought when MS modified IE so that it didn't accept cookies in a frame they would HAVE to do it but apparently they didn't agree with me. As a result, clicking on links contained within a Hotmail message is useless.
On the other hand, GMail is really nice. Part of the UI though I'm still up in the air as to whether it's more difficult for me to use because I'm not used to it or because it's just plain not better. For instance, I sent an email to approximately 40 people from my Gmail account and received a single response from just about all of them. Well all of those responses are lumped into a single unit called a conversation that I find very difficult to navigate/cleanup/etc. I know that's the point - that I'm never supposed to delete anything, but I think actually hitting that "ideal" might be counterproductive. So, I stick with Yahoo - especially since they added the ability to login using SSL. Can you believe for years you had to login with your password in plaintext!! And even now the "Standard" login is plaintext - you have to click on "Secure" mode to make sure nobody gets your login and password.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Business model aside, isn't the market pretty well saturated? I have a university address which uses my real name and is my rl address. When I graduate I get a grad address which will probably take on the same functionality. I have a yahoo account which I've held for the last five years with which I sign up to things that I reasonably trust but don't want to use my real name for. In particular I use it for newsletters. Then I have a dozen or so throw away accounts created for just one purpose, or for companies I don't trust at all. I don't *need* another account, and I have no reason to switch. I have a Gmail account, but no use for it. Yes, the searching would be quite nice, and so would decent spam filtering, but it's not enough to sway me off the other two. Most novices online will use their service-provided address. Maybe Gmail will grab their webmail accounts when they spread out, but these are less likely to be primary addresses. Most people who've been around a few months already have plenty of email addresses, and from my experience it takes a heck of a good reason to change.
Half of what you say is right. But:
@gmail.com will not be a mark of the 'elite' for long. GMail is going for the mass market.
And the point is, it's not entirely Google culture -- it's that GMail's business model doesn't require distraction. Their model is based on ads being relevant. If other webmail providers come up with similar relevance technology, they may become as sleek and non-intrusive as GMail.
But you're right -- attitude matters. MS and Yahoo work by traditional techniques, i.e. dangling tasty candy to consumers, in order to deliver eyeballs to corporations. From the era of television.
Google, thankfully, has a different attitude. They're not trying to go against the nature of the web and make it more like TV. They're trying to draw more businesses into the internet way of doing things.
The same goes for attachments. Somehow index them and store them seperately.
For example, I was sent an Ashley Simpson 3mb attachment when that first came out, and I noticed 4 others on that message that had gmail accounts. How many other gmail users got that same attachment?
The biggest problem with the Gmail interface is that it uses so much JavaScript; it doesn't run at all on many handheld browsers. I think at least they need a simplified XHTML interface.
The POP feature also makes no sense to me; it basically begs you to download messages from their servers when their stated goal is to collect lots of mail. If they offered IMAP access instead, people could keep their messages on the server. They could even use IMAP for placing subtle adds (e.g., message "1" is always some kind of simple ad, but unlike spam or hotmail, there would always only be one advertising message).
An area where Gmail could really do something better is passwords: they really should offer one-time passwords for travelers. Right now, when traveling, there is a high chance with web-based mail that your password gets compromised.
In any case, for fairly little money, you can get large mailboxes with IMAP interfaces from other companies, and you get a lot more control over them than with Gmail. Currently, Gmail's "free" isn't good enough for me to save the money I get with a commercial provider.