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3 Email Chiefs Come to Dinner
Carl Bialik writes "The heads of email from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all recently went over to Wall Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes's house for dinner and conversation. Gomes has an interesting writeup of the conversation that transpired. The meal started as a lovefest for Gmail and Google's Paul Buchheit, with Microsoft's Kevin Doerr (no relation to the venture capitalist) and Yahoo's Ethan Diamond 'agreeing that much of the current excitement in the email world can be traced back to last year's debut of Mr. Buchheit's Gmail.' But Gomes adds, 'Whatever early lead Gmail may have had in creating a next-generation email program, both Microsoft and Yahoo have more than caught up. I wondered out loud to Mr. Buchheit if Gmail, the pioneer, might now be falling behind. "There is a lot more we want to build," he responded.'"
It started off ok but the punchline could use some work.
The meal started as a lovefest for Gmail and Google's Paul Buchheit, with Microsoft's Kevin Doerr (no relation to the venture capitalist) and Yahoo's Ethan Diamond 'agreeing that much of the current excitement in the email world can be traced back to last year's debut of Mr. Buchheit's Gmail.'
Reportedly, soon after, Steve Ballmer threw a chair at Mr. Doerr, who was told that he was going to be "fucking killed."
You can clearly see where that was going, let alone the article. The article was rather interesting to me... I can only picture the rep's from Microsoft and Yahoo eyeing Googles Rep all night long, just waiting for the opportunity to rip him to shreds.
Just me
I hope they don't mean they have caught up by simply saying, "We have added more free space too!!!"
I still use Yahoo for all of my spam and I love it for that. It hasn't changed much over what it used to be. Maybe I'm wrong here, but I still accidently use shortcuts in Yahoo... that were intended for Gmail.
There are more things I want to see out of Gmail, but I'm just not sure where the "caught up" part comes into play.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
The day I liked using the Gmail interface better then Thunderbird (and of course outlook) was the day I think Gmail won the war of email. If you count all the spiffy Greasemonkey extensions in firefox for Gmail, then you have a really amazing email service.
Meet new people, and kill them.
I wouldn't know anything about MSN e-mail. I wouldn't touch an MSN account with a 10' cat5 cable.
Oh, I almost forgot: YMMV.
Google's Paul Buchheit, with Microsoft's Kevin Doerr (no relation to the venture capitalist) and Yahoo's Ethan Diamond walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "what is this, a joke?"
-Lod
Microsoft has promised to fix the spam problem by 2006. That's only ten days away! That's great, my little email server is getting about a thousand spams a day so I'm really looking forward to what they roll out. I'm a little concerned, though, that Microsoft hasn't actually announced anything specific that would fix the problem yet, this close to 2006.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
(no relation to the lattice of carbon atoms)
Micrososft and Yahoo are weak compared to the vision Google has. All they both have done for the last 4 years is play catch up and the copy game. Google should shake these two off their coat tails and continue to be industry leaders. Let microsoft continue to develop their subpar OS and let yahoo do whatever they are supposedly good at. Neither can compete with Google in Google's arena!
The article implies that Microsoft has more than caught up, assuming caught up to google with hotmail.
Maybe I missed it, but Hotmail is still a festering hole of a email service compared to GMail. Its slower, a total spam magnet, and its spam filtering is as useless as a condom with the tip cut off. Oh and the interface hasnt actually changed much. Not to mention GMail keeps piling on the capacity and features.
Caught up? Riiiiiiiiight
Unfortunately, Buchheit kept interrupting to mention advertisers based on what Doerr and Diamond were talking about.
spam egg spam spam bacon and spam
Remember kids, with great power comes great opportunity to abuse that power
Shouldn't be mad at each other. The Yahooligan knows that Yahoo is still the #1 most visited website, the MS Man knows that his OS owns, and the google guy gloats over Gmail. Heck, Yahoo and MS have been around way longer than google. It's the upstart, even in this field.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
Gmail is still the only one of the three to still offer free POP3 support. I can use my own favorite client (currently Thunderbird) with gMail. For free.
{ - Generic Guy - }
This article shows that engineers of competing products usually respect each other. All too often this is lost when passionate people discuss why they like/dislike a product.
No, I will not work for your startup
I've been playing with Yahoo! Mail Beta for a couple of weeks now, and as far as the interface goes, I'm not terribly impressed. It is essentially a desktop GUI email client fit into a browser window, and it does that well enough (though a little slow on my Linux and Mac boxes -- and they do warn you things may not be great on those OS's). Nevertheless, it feels to me like yesterday's ideas stuck in a new package.
The great thing about Gmail is its interface innovation. Where Yahoo! Mail has always felt cluttered (and Mail Beta does too), Gmail really gets out of my way so I can just read and send email.
I haven't used Hotmail, but from what I've seen, looking over other people's shoulders, they don't really compete with Gmail either.
I was almost expecting him to say that after dinner, he broke out his Martin 12-sting and they all sang Kumbaya.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
My SquirrelMail installation has it all over all three of them!
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Dining philosophers.
And what a surprise, a deadlock.
Well, I am happy for them. Somehow, I doubt they eked out the evening on K rations and a quart of cider wiped down with a rag. However, in between congratulating themselves these gentlemen could perhaps have spared a moment for the many millions of folks out there for whom email means not megabucks in the bank and a cushy job but fraud, phishing and asphixiation by spam. The net needs new and improved email protocols, not (yet more) talk-talk from the Porsche-driving classes. Also, this journalist sounds a little too close to his natural prey. Perhaps he laced the after-dinner mints with a power emetic as a gesture, at least, of professional independence. We can only hope.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
AJAX based drag-and-drop email is becoming commonplace now. At this point it's a "must have" feature, and any web based email program that doesn't have it is going to look as if it hasn't been updated since 2004 :)
:)
Yahoo and MSN both have it now. Even the software that drives private email systems has it now. You've probably seen the screenshots for Roundcube, and you've probably seen the screenshots and swf-demos of systems like Citadel and Zimbra.
The point is, Google was the big trailblazer here, but at this point, everyone is now on that trail. The bar has been raised and rich AJAX webmail has quickly gone past "innovative" and is now "an expectation." Meanwhile, Google is probably busy cooking up the Next Big Thing. We hope.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Slightly off topic warning! What do you suppose would happen if Google introduced a corporate server version of Gmail? Would it crush Exchange?
Who else read the title as "3 Email Chefs Come to Dinner"?
I had a picture in my mind of Iron Chef.
Today's ingredient is... (drum roll)
SPAM!!
(A can of Spam is unveiled amid lights, smoke, and dramatic music.)
Innovation, viola! http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic= 1555
But thanks for playing.
Do you work for UPS or something?
One feature I need in GMail is this (and I hope someone from Google is reading). I want to have several mailboxes under the same signin name. In other words, I want bar@gmail.com and quux@gmail.com both show up when I login as foo@gmail.com. If they share the same storage quota, I don't care. What I do care about is that emails are in the same mailbox, and when I reply, the reply comes from bar@gmail.com or quux@gmail.com correspondingly. I'd use one address for people who I trust, and another for people who I don't trust with a different set of filters for each group.
This one feature would allow me to abandon native email clients for good (aside from firing them up do back up my email from time to time).
The coolest new thing i've seen in Gmail is their implementation of AJAX in the autocompletion of address book names and other goodies in the system. Makes for easier emailing.
Use the tags (you create them) for a few weeks and you'll realize that they're almost folders version 2. Imo there are two big differences to folders in most file systems: ...opps sorry I mean tags... at the same time.
/. and /.. functionality but with tags you'ld want an additional /... feature to turn off/on recursive subtag/tree availability independently for each instance of the subtag placement... This is now public domain too as far as I am concerned :)
1. You have the feature of being able to have the same file in several folders
2. You can't have tags inside each other like subfolders. It would be cool if it was possible because it would allow for using hierarchical structures if you need it anywhere (perhaps it is possible and I just haven't figured it out). What's more it would allow for having the same subfolder/subtag in different tags just like the files!
In case noone else has I claim authorship of the idea of subtags in point number two and place it in the public domain by posting this post. Anybody is free to implement it as far as I am concerned.
Oh... now I got an additional idea. With folders you've got
Google if you're interested in a cronically ill slacker without any qualifications but with the occasional interesting idea (or perhaps these were the last I'll ever have?) track me down (I know you can) and offer me a job (I'll move to the states if you want me to).
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
What's funny is how the reps from Yahoo and Hotmail ribbed Google for its "beta" status, but when you think about it... that's truly one of GMail's best features.
Think about it, GMail users--how much trouble was it to get a username you LIKED? In fact, even to this day, there are still a lot of usernames that aren't duped or that require adding a stupid numeral suffix like 666. All because spammers and hordes of username thieves didn't jump on board--hell, they couldn't. I say, stay in "invite-only" beta as long as you want. It's not hard at all to get an invite if you want one, and it keeps the riffraff out.
MS has demonstrated one of the best web clients for years; it comes with Exchange and is called outlook web access.
OWA is simply a framed Web site styled to look like its application big brother...the rendering to HTML still occurs completely at the server end. I've been using OWA for almost 6 years now and I think even 2003 is lacking compared to Gmail...it is noticably slower and the main frame must completely reload to do almost anything. One of the big advantages of Gmail is how quickly it responds to any action. In addition the OWA GUI is not nearly as clean and simple--too many unlabeled icons and cluttered layout. Yes, design matters.
What stops them from going public as quickly as google upgrades is that while google has a few million subscribers the other two have 10 of millions. It's a bit different when you deal with grown up numbers.
There is no fundamental difference between a "few" million and "10s of" million users. The barrier MS and Yahoo face is that their systems are already in use and have already been through numerous updates, patches, and bug fixes. It's a legacy problem, not a scale problem. Google's biggest advantage is that their system was built "modern" from the start. As their user numbers grow and technology advances, they will at some point undoubtedly face problems similar to what MS and Yahoo face now.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
How about just coding to standards? Why is that so hard to get? I use a Web browser (Opera) which conforms to those same standards in what it will accept and how it renders; all you (email chiefs/chefs) need to do is send me standards-compliant data. I'll take it from there. Leave the proprietary browser-specific workaround crap back in 1999 where it belongs.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE