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The Inside Story of Gmail On Its Tenth Anniversary

Posted by timothy on from the waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop dept.

harrymcc (1641347) writes "Google officially — and mischievously — unveiled Gmail on April Fools' Day 2004. That makes this its tenth birthday, which I celebrated by talking to a bunch of the people who created the service for TIME.com. It's an amazing story: The service was in the works for almost three years before the announcement, and faced so much opposition from within Google that it wasn't clear it would ever reach consumers." Update: 04/01 13:37 GMT by T : We've introduced a lot of new features lately; some readers may note that with this story we are slowly rolling out one we hope you enjoy -- an audio version of each Slashdot story. If you are one of the readers in our testing pool, you'll hear the story just by clicking on it from the home page as if to read the comments; if you're driving, we hope you'll use your mobile devices responsibly.

13 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Sort It. by MrL0G1C · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ten years, perhaps they'll be able to enable name/subject 'sort' soon.

    All they've done is make the UI completely unintuitive, I haven't seen any useful changes over the last ten years, just adverts and the continuous nagging and coercion to use Google-plus.

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
    1. Re:Sort It. by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's funny is the nagging only gets worse when you actually use Google+
      It's so bad I don't even log into Google+ if I can help it. I follow some people on there, and I post stuff but the pop-up nagging for me to invite everyone I know constantly is very annoying. Now they have a "Selfie" popup encouraging me to take pictures of myself and post them... wtf?

  2. conversational format by trybywrench · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wasn't Gmail the first to introduce the conversational layout? I remember the first time I saw it I was blown away over how simple the idea was yet how much impact it made on UX. Also, IIRC Gmail was the first to get Ajax right in a mail client, I remember being impressed when they embedded a GTalk client right there in mail. Then I think Google Calendar followed then docs with App Engine in there somewhere too. No matter your feelings on Google the company the software that sprang from Gmail is amazing.

    --
    I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
    1. Re:conversational format by Tink2000 · · Score: 4, Funny

      What? Are you using a potato for RAM or something?

      --
      Why do I M2 everything negatively?
  3. Re:NSA mail by bobbied · · Score: 5, Funny

    Naw, we do it every day now...

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  4. WTF would you think we would enjoy an "audio ver"? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >> some readers may note that with this story we are slowly rolling out one we hope you enjoy -- an audio version of each Slashdot story.

    Er...no thanks. There's a reason video tanked on this site too - your readership is too damn busy to wait for the talky-talk. So, we skim (and type) like crazy, and value text-heavy sites like Slashdot and Reddit. (OK, 15 seconds - time up - back to work!)

  5. Re:Why I never created a Gmail account by JackieBrown · · Score: 4, Insightful

    According to the article, that was because they didn't have the resources to support an unlimited user roll out.

  6. Auto play audio? by Enry · · Score: 5, Informative

    Screw you. If this is an April Fools joke, go back to OMG PWNIES. If you're rolling this out for good, seeya.

  7. Re:WTF would you think we would enjoy an "audio ve by SimonTheSoundMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Woosh!

  8. I guess you are looking for the illiterate crowd. by cfulton · · Score: 4

    I DON'T want my computer to read to me every time I open you page. I can read it myself. I want to read it myself. If I wanted it to be read to me I would go to CNN.

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    No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
  9. Autoplay audio or my account. Choose one. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative

    Admins, this is the line I have drawn in sand. I have put up with all kinds of crap. I did not complain too much about Beta. But once more time you put up an auto playing audio, you will be banished. All the 2^7 days read continuously or 31 achievements will be discarded and the account abandoned if it is done again.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Autoplay audio or my account. Choose one. by guises · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Okay, this is ridiculous. I know that complaining is just one of the things that we do here, but it's April first and they announce a ridiculous new "feature" about reading stories out loud which turns out to be in morse code. I'd say that you all aren't getting the joke, but that would imply that you aren't hearing it, which would mean that you have no reason to complain in the first place.

      What is with you folks? The rule has always been: if you don't like Slashdot on April first, don't come.

  10. Re:I hate gmail. by jader3rd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes. If I use IMAP, then why use gmail at all?

    Storage and Spam filter.