GMail Sign-Ups Via Mobile

jm.one writes "In the wake of recent releases releases Google Desktop 2.0 Beta and Google Talk 1.0 Beta, Gmail (known as Google Mail for legal reasons in some areas) is finally open to everyone. Learn more in the Google Blog entry and register at the Gmail website. Please take note that sign-up occurs via mobile phone at the moment, and only U.S. citizens can register for now. Plans to add more countries are on the way."

Comments

Not yet, it isn't

[GauteL]

It is still clearly marked "Beta" and no links to registration is found on the gmail.com website.

Google officially evil

[Henry V .009]

Give Google your phone number to get free email? Whoa, if Microsoft tried this, they'd have a mob with pitchforks and torches descending on Redmond.

no longer compelling?

[Dink Paisy]

The most visible feature of GMail is the extra storage, but with Hotmail, Yahoo and others offering more storage now, will many people who haven't already switched to GMail want to? Acquiring a new email address is a pretty heavy operation, since you have to inform everyone who has the old one (well, everyone that you still want to communicate with via email...) about the new one. I have a Hotmail account, and despite the search features (that most people won't even bother learning about) I didn't switch when I got GMail invites, just because it would be more effort than it is worth.

My personal opinion is that Google waited to long to release this service to the general public, and they have lost their edge in web mail.

Re:no longer compelling?

[arudloff]

The most visible feature of GMail is the extra storage

I think it's safe to say that 99.9% of the people who use GMail will tell you it's the interface, not the storage.

Not that Google is evil now, but...

[typical]

Not that Google is evil now, but their ability to get *really* evil if they ever go evil has been steadily increasing...

One notable hole in Google's research lineup has been privacy. If all Google wants is aggregate data, why no clever solutions to provide the individual with guarantees that Google can't get useful individual data but can get useful aggregate data?

Re:Great!

[rbarreira]

Quicker than Thunderbird or Outlook?

Depends on the speed of your computer and internet connection.

Simpler than Thunderbird or Outlook?

Sure.

Better than Thunderbird or Outlook?

Much better! It's as if you were searching the web with google!

I already keep every mail that's not spam or duped in the replies, it's not nearly 2TB yet.

It's not TB, it's GB.

Plus; it's not backed up! If keeping e-mails is important, don't you think it should be backed up?

Google employs redundant storage. I've heard that data is stored at least 3.5 times, but I'm not going to search for a source for this right now...

RE: GMAIL NOT out of beta

[paithuk]

All the spammer needs is a pocket pc phone and a program that can read the SMS, and go to the web page and authenticate it. Easy peasy and all they have to use is a smartphone.

Since Google will inevitably store it, they would no longer allow other users to register with the same phone number. The purpose is not really that of a Turing test, but instead a way of limiting the demands on their resources.

Re:mobile phone?

[jspectre]

shrug. don't like it? don't sign up. not like anyone is forcing you to. i'm sure you can sign up right now for a hotmail account and MS doesn't want your cell phone number.

Re:mobile phone?

[mzwaterski]

It stops robots from signing up thousands of gmail accounts and using them to SPAM. Google couldn't keep up fast enough: think Hotmail and Yahoo before image verification. Google has simply taken it to the next level. This doesn't directly stop SPAM to gmail subscribers, its stops SPAM to all email users in general.

If you believe that your public phone number is too much information to give google, then just have a friend sign you up. This is an added feature, not an added restriction. Before you couldn't sign up at all, now you can sign up if you have a phone. Doesn't really seem like anything to lose sleep over.

Can only US citizens own a mobile?

[huwtj]

I'm confused as to how "sign-ups only work with U.S. mobile phone numbers" became "only U.S. citizens can register for now". Do you have to prove you're a US citizen to buy a mobile phone in the US now?!

People who don't want to sign up...

[SilentReallySilentUs]

Can simply wait for hotmail and yahoo(well, it is pretty good already) to wake up and introduce smooth AJAX and WYSYIG interface, add more memory, clean up their advertising and spam filters. For a company like Microsoft with billions in cash, it should not be a big deal. So, my guess is if one waits for about 6 months, one does not have to abandon his 9 year old Hotmail account.. Is Microsoft listening? Providing a good interface is a matter of willingness to think about the user and innovate rather than hire rocket scientists. I recently worked on http://www.collaze.com/ and found that any feature I want to give to the user can indeed be implemented in DHTML/Javascript, if you are passionate enough to research and experiment.

Re:Consider me nuts...

[wasted time]

[Google] wanting my mobile number is insane.

Why is this insane? Anyone you call or text-message knows your number and very well may keep it indefinitely. All privacy paranoia aside; maybe Google is working on an interface for simplified text-messaging that links all your contacts from your email, IM, and mobile phone accounts. They are becoming heavy in communications apps, so maybe they want to track usage patterns of the Gmail users, who sign up by mobile phone, to see if there are any significant differences compared to their standard online-only users. Maybe they are using the numbers to track which mobile providers are most popular with their own users. Maybe they are using the numbers to simply keep track of how many accounts the average user opens. There are likely many, many more reasons that we're just not smart enough to think of, but they are.

I doubt very seriously they want your number to sell to telemarketers or track where you eat dinner on Friday night. What I don't doubt is that there is at least one very easy way to prevent them from knowing anything about you.