Groundbreaking new Email Service: Gmail! - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

skier · 04-02-2004, 05:46 PM

This came as quite a suprise to me that it was not an April Fool's Joke. For those still in the dark, Gmail is Google's Hotmail/Yahoo!Mail Busting Email Service. This brand spankin new free Email provides the user with a full gigabyte of free email storage, eliminating all need to delete old emails. There are other features that will be included, like a search function for your email, and simple text ads instead of popup ads.
for more info follow the link Gmail

This Email service is so innovative that at first I did not believe it. A full gigabyte for every user is going to take up a lot of space- Their servers will have to be huge to take on the inevitable millions of users that will be signing up for this email. We're talking thousands of terabytes here. Also, there will be problems with people using their google account as storage space for files, or pirating.

All in all though, I am quite excited that this is no april fool's gag and that it will really come into fruition. Your thoughts?

Halx · 04-02-2004, 06:05 PM

I still think it's a gag.

kel · 04-02-2004, 06:15 PM

Only a VERY small fraction of users will use the gigabyte of space. Don't make the assumption that simply because they offer it, people will need it. And when they refer to 1 gigabyte, they may not even be including compression and other optimizations.

I imagine they could save even more if they implemented some sort of spam caching strategy.
j/k

And frankly, even then... A gigabyte isn't that much space. A single google query takes upwards of 100 megabytes of disk I/O, the smallest unit of granularity in the google file system is 64megabytes! (The standard size in most is in the kilobyte range)

User Name · 04-02-2004, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Halx
I still think it's a gag.

I'm inclined to agree. If a million users signed up for a gigabyte of space each, imagine how much it would cost for Google.

World's King · 04-02-2004, 06:23 PM

If it is true that must be the sound of Bill Gates crying I hear.

Halx · 04-02-2004, 06:33 PM

Just because you can still navigate to 'Pigeon Rank' doesn't mean it's real.

skier · 04-02-2004, 06:36 PM

What motives would google have to continue this gag past April 1st?

SecretMethod70 · 04-02-2004, 06:49 PM

Google has officially stated that it was not an April Fool's joke:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15121
http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/01/tech...mail/index.htm

I'm still in shock.

filtherton · 04-02-2004, 06:53 PM

Would we even be talking about this if it weren't a doubled up april fools joke? It's just good marketing. Or not.

RoboBlaster · 04-02-2004, 07:02 PM

I heard the catch was that google will search the emails for certain keywords and insert advertisements into the emails.

PulpMind · 04-02-2004, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RoboBlaster
I heard the catch was that google will search the emails for certain keywords and insert advertisements into the emails.

knowing alot of Google people, I highly doubt that... Google is known for being anti-spam, and using as little commercial advertisement as possible. I don't see them being the types to do a Microsoft on us...
I'm signing up. I'm so through with my hacked AOL mail account.

SecretMethod70 · 04-02-2004, 07:42 PM

well, that's actually part right. Just like when you search for something on google and there are text ads on the side of your search based on the search word, there will be text ads based on key words in your e-mails. I don't think it's particularly low though as from the descriptions I've heard the ads are fairly non-obtrusive. I do plan to read the User Agreement though.

Kllr Wolf · 04-02-2004, 07:51 PM

Sounds interesting will definatly have to check it out.

SonicRL · 04-02-2004, 08:01 PM

And here I thought it was just another April Fools joke.

If this is real, and it seems like it, I guess i'm going to be switching emails ^_~.

Fremen · 04-02-2004, 08:07 PM

Well, I signed up to be kept informed about future developments.

We'll see if it's bs or not.

CSflim · 04-03-2004, 03:18 AM

I think that this is absolutely genius marketing!

When I first saw it I though:
a)If it's an april fools joke, its a pretty lame one! I even read the gmail.com site, and found nothing at all amusing about it.
or
b)If it is real, then that's pretty amazing, but why april 1st? Surely if they we going to do something this groundbreaking, they wouldn't have done it on the day that's in it?

So, they make you wonder if it's all too good to be true....and then they tell that it is true!

Genius!

Pacifier · 04-03-2004, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by PulpMind
knowing alot of Google people, I highly doubt that... Google is known for being anti-spam, and using as little commercial advertisement as possible.

Well, it is true. check out the gmail site:

The matching of ads to content is a completely automated process performed by computers using the same technology that powers the Google AdSense program. This technology already places targeted ads on thousands of sites across the web by quickly analyzing the content of pages and determining which ads are most relevant to them.

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/about.html#ads

H12 · 04-03-2004, 10:10 AM

Looks like I found a good storage account now.

moonstrucksoul · 04-03-2004, 10:18 AM

maybe i just don't see it as that great of a deal, am i missing the special part, i don't have problems with my hotmail, and it seems useless to keep all of your emails, besides the number of emails i get in a week can be counted on 2 hands, do you all get that much email?

james t kirk · 04-03-2004, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by moonstrucksoul
maybe i just don't see it as that great of a deal, am i missing the special part, i don't have problems with my hotmail, and it seems useless to keep all of your emails, besides the number of emails i get in a week can be counted on 2 hands, do you all get that much email?

yes and no.

The big problem with hotmail is that i can not receive any mpegs, etc. Send a file over 1 meg, forget it.

This is great and I am awaiting its release.

oldtimer · 04-03-2004, 10:47 AM

Hmmmmmmmmmm... the possibilities.

moonstrucksoul · 04-03-2004, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by james t kirk
yes and no.

The big problem with hotmail is that i can not receive any mpegs, etc. Send a file over 1 meg, forget it.

i never thought of that, yeah, there are a few large files that i wouldn't mind sending to my bro, without having to burn them and snail mail them. good point!

CSflim · 04-04-2004, 08:15 AM

I have a feeling that Gmail are going to put a cap on individual message sizes.

The whole idea of the 1GB is that it is supposed to stop you having to delete messages....just store them away. The 1GB is supposed to be enough for a decade's worth of mail.

If they do put a cap on the amount of space, it would solve many of the problems people have been pointing out;
a) The massive expense of providing 1GB of hard disk for every user. Each user's account is only going to grow reasonably slowly over the years. Plus with storage space falling over time, who knows how much a gig of space will cost (currently about $1)
b) It will stop it being used for Warez, and other general file storage uses.

As far as I know, they have said nothing about such a cap, but I find it very likely that it will be in TOS, when it becomes available.

mingusfingers · 04-04-2004, 12:27 PM

I don't need that kind of space, or want to keep old emails. I'll stick with what I have.

skier · 04-04-2004, 03:09 PM

"I don't need that speed, or want to fill it up. I'll stick with the Horse."

Aletheia · 04-05-2004, 09:07 AM

I will try it though yahoo seems to be enough for what I do.

NoLa · 04-05-2004, 09:31 AM

I really don't care about having to delete old emails if its that important i'll print it out.

SecretMethod70 · 04-05-2004, 09:33 AM

Something of interest....

Quote:

Google mail is evil - privacy advocates

This week should have seen a public relations triumph for Google. The company began offering a free e-mail service with 100 times as much storage as Yahoo's $59.99 service. Instead the criticism has taken Google by surprise, as privacy advocates who had never before voiced criticism stepped forward. Google has previously responded to privacy concerns by saying, "we're nice, trust us" or pointing users to the company's mission statement of "do no evil". Such trite sentiments didn't work this time; even The Drudge Report piled in.

Google executives had ignored a fierce internal debate over the ethics of the service and on Wednesday afternoon rushed out a jokey April 1 press release, ostensibly to trump a New York Times scoop.

But it isn't so much Google searching email that has caused the anxiety from privacy watchdogs this week, as the company's confused retention policy. What will Google do with that data? Google's cookie is an index for all your searches until 2038, and sits alongside an Orkut cookie that tells Google - or friendly law enforcement officials or marketeers - exactly who you are. Google's Gmail will complete the picture, indexing private electronic discourse under the main Google search cookie.

"Once users register for Gmail, Google would be able to make that connection, if it chose to," Pam Dixon, head of the World Privacy Forum told the Los Angeles Times. "And if Google ever compared the two sets of data there are some people who would be chilled and embarrassed." Richard Smith, formerly at the Privacy Foundation pointed out that "Google kind of makes it easy to connect all the dots together."

Rather than allay these fears, Google's accident-prone co-founder Larry Page refused to rule out a future policy of 'joining the dots'. A simple "No, Never" would have prevented much of the damage. But asked if Google planned to link Gmail users to their Web search queries, Page replied:

"It might be really useful for us to know that information. I'd hate to rule anything like that out."

Google's Gmail privacy policy points out that your email will be retained even after you close your account -

"The contents of your Gmail account also are stored and maintained on Google servers in order to provide the service. Indeed, residual copies of email may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account."

At a time when the American Library Association is advising librarians to destroy records of borrowing as soon as they can, to protect users privacy, it's an odd time to be boasting about infinite retention.

Clearly there's something of a reality gap in the upper echelons of the Googleplex. There's a disconnect between the jokey launch, and the statement that "machines, not humans" will read email that's every bit as unnerving as a President making jokes while citizens are being dismembered.

For archivist Daniel Brandt, it's reminiscent of the Doubleclick privacy scandal.

"Doubleclick bought acquired a company that had names and address in their database, and gleefully announced that now they could monetize their massive cookie and web-bug database by correlating it with names of individuals," he told us. "The privacy advocates jumped all over that one (it was in year 2000 or so), and Doubleclick had to abandon their plans. This time it's the same issue, but it's all within one company."

"While Google brags that no humans will read your emails, the entire Gmail program will involve extensive automated profiling of you as an individual. Google will be sharing the non-identifiable portions of your profile with anyone they choose. If the ownership of Google changes, or there is a merger, the entire personally-identifiable profile will be available to the new owners or partners."

Google has done an extraordinary job of sidestepping human responsibility by deploying machine rhetoric (what we call the 'Bill Gates defense') . But now it has to deal with grown ups, and this is its severest PR test yet. The rationale behind going public is business expansion; but Google can't add services unless people trust it.

DelayedReaction · 04-05-2004, 02:02 PM

Well I trust Google with my crappy mundane information. If I was going to transmit something that I was concerned would get me in trouble with law enforcement, I would be using an anonymous account from a public computer access point.

Supple Cow · 04-26-2004, 07:21 AM

I'm drunk with storage space!!!!! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Okay, not really. But I am LOVING gmail beta and I trust machines more than people under contract to keep my information a secret.

Is anybody else using it yet? They offered it to me because I use Blogger.

Y2KDREAD · 04-26-2004, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Supple Cow
I'm drunk with storage space!!!!! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Okay, not really. But I am LOVING gmail beta and I trust machines more than people under contract to keep my information a secret.

Is anybody else using it yet? They offered it to me because I use Blogger.

Yup, I have an old blogger account that I never use and was very happy to see that I could sign up for gmail. I am not using it as of yet, I am waiting to see if they will give you a way to check it though Outlook, if I can do this I plan on forwarding my other email accounts to Google and use the massive amount of space and the search capability to my advantage.

PulpMind · 04-26-2004, 09:50 PM

So one of my friends now has a GMail account.
Yes, she has a 1 Gig. So far, she has not experienced any caps in sending.
She has this account because she's very good friends with one of the lead programmers at Google. She's an anarchist of sorts. He's extremely lefty and anti corperate. They are both very concerned with their privacy, and looked into exactly what Google is doing before going ahead with their accounts. From what they've come to understand of it, Google is doing nothing more than data screening, information held momentarily for ad purposes, then discarded. Google is not in the business of knowing everything about you and narcing you to the feds, as that article would have one believe =P ... so if that bothers you, understandable, I suppose.. but I suggest not using your Windows or Mac OS (probably safest to just get rid of the computer), turn off the TV, and just to be safe, don't leave the house - because you're going to be a target market no matter where you go.

04-02-2004, 05:46 PM	#1 (permalink)
skier Rawr! Location: Edmontania	Groundbreaking new Email Service: Gmail! This came as quite a suprise to me that it was not an April Fool's Joke. For those still in the dark, Gmail is Google's Hotmail/Yahoo!Mail Busting Email Service. This brand spankin new free Email provides the user with a full gigabyte of free email storage, eliminating all need to delete old emails. There are other features that will be included, like a search function for your email, and simple text ads instead of popup ads. for more info follow the link Gmail This Email service is so innovative that at first I did not believe it. A full gigabyte for every user is going to take up a lot of space- Their servers will have to be huge to take on the inevitable millions of users that will be signing up for this email. We're talking thousands of terabytes here. Also, there will be problems with people using their google account as storage space for files, or pirating. All in all though, I am quite excited that this is no april fool's gag and that it will really come into fruition. Your thoughts? __________________ "Asking a bomb squad if an old bomb is still "real" is not the best thing to do if you want to save it." - denim

04-02-2004, 06:05 PM	#2 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	I still think it's a gag. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

04-02-2004, 06:15 PM	#3 (permalink)
kel WARNING: FLAMMABLE Location: Ask Acetylene	Only a VERY small fraction of users will use the gigabyte of space. Don't make the assumption that simply because they offer it, people will need it. And when they refer to 1 gigabyte, they may not even be including compression and other optimizations. I imagine they could save even more if they implemented some sort of spam caching strategy. j/k And frankly, even then... A gigabyte isn't that much space. A single google query takes upwards of 100 megabytes of disk I/O, the smallest unit of granularity in the google file system is 64megabytes! (The standard size in most is in the kilobyte range) __________________ "It better be funny" Last edited by kel; 04-02-2004 at 06:19 PM..

04-02-2004, 06:23 PM	#5 (permalink)
World's King Here Location: Denver City Denver	If it is true that must be the sound of Bill Gates crying I hear. __________________ heavy is the head that wears the crown

04-02-2004, 06:33 PM	#6 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	Just because you can still navigate to 'Pigeon Rank' doesn't mean it's real. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

04-02-2004, 06:36 PM	#7 (permalink)
skier Rawr! Location: Edmontania	What motives would google have to continue this gag past April 1st? __________________ "Asking a bomb squad if an old bomb is still "real" is not the best thing to do if you want to save it." - denim

04-02-2004, 06:49 PM	#8 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Google has officially stated that it was not an April Fool's joke: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15121 http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/01/tech...mail/index.htm I'm still in shock. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

04-02-2004, 06:53 PM	#9 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	Would we even be talking about this if it weren't a doubled up april fools joke? It's just good marketing. Or not.

04-02-2004, 07:02 PM	#10 (permalink)
RoboBlaster Psycho Location: Ouuuterrrr Spaaaaacccceeee	I heard the catch was that google will search the emails for certain keywords and insert advertisements into the emails.

04-02-2004, 07:42 PM	#12 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	well, that's actually part right. Just like when you search for something on google and there are text ads on the side of your search based on the search word, there will be text ads based on key words in your e-mails. I don't think it's particularly low though as from the descriptions I've heard the ads are fairly non-obtrusive. I do plan to read the User Agreement though. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

04-02-2004, 07:51 PM	#13 (permalink)
Kllr Wolf Psycho Location: Lubbock, TX	Sounds interesting will definatly have to check it out. __________________ Caffeine - the molecule of life.

04-02-2004, 08:01 PM	#14 (permalink)
SonicRL Insane	And here I thought it was just another April Fools joke. If this is real, and it seems like it, I guess i'm going to be switching emails ^_~. __________________

04-02-2004, 08:07 PM	#15 (permalink)
Fremen With a mustache, the cool factor would be too much Location: left side of my couch, East Texas	Well, I signed up to be kept informed about future developments. We'll see if it's bs or not. __________________ Google

04-03-2004, 03:18 AM	#16 (permalink)
CSflim Sky Piercer Location: Ireland	I think that this is absolutely genius marketing! When I first saw it I though: a)If it's an april fools joke, its a pretty lame one! I even read the gmail.com site, and found nothing at all amusing about it. or b)If it is real, then that's pretty amazing, but why april 1st? Surely if they we going to do something this groundbreaking, they wouldn't have done it on the day that's in it? So, they make you wonder if it's all too good to be true....and then they tell that it is true! Genius! __________________

04-03-2004, 10:10 AM	#18 (permalink)
H12 I'm not about getting creamed, I'm about winning! Location: K-Town, TN	Looks like I found a good storage account now. __________________ "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit." --Aristotle

04-03-2004, 10:47 AM	#21 (permalink)
oldtimer Addict	Hmmmmmmmmmm... the possibilities. __________________ Slowly but surely getting over the loss of TFP v. 3.0. Where the hell am I?.... Showering once a month does not make you a better person. "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Martin Luther King, Jr.

04-03-2004, 10:18 AM	#19 (permalink)
moonstrucksoul hovering in the distance Location: the land of milk and honey	maybe i just don't see it as that great of a deal, am i missing the special part, i don't have problems with my hotmail, and it seems useless to keep all of your emails, besides the number of emails i get in a week can be counted on 2 hands, do you all get that much email? __________________ no signature required

04-04-2004, 08:15 AM	#23 (permalink)
CSflim Sky Piercer Location: Ireland	I have a feeling that Gmail are going to put a cap on individual message sizes. The whole idea of the 1GB is that it is supposed to stop you having to delete messages....just store them away. The 1GB is supposed to be enough for a decade's worth of mail. If they do put a cap on the amount of space, it would solve many of the problems people have been pointing out; a) The massive expense of providing 1GB of hard disk for every user. Each user's account is only going to grow reasonably slowly over the years. Plus with storage space falling over time, who knows how much a gig of space will cost (currently about $1) b) It will stop it being used for Warez, and other general file storage uses. As far as I know, they have said nothing about such a cap, but I find it very likely that it will be in TOS, when it becomes available. __________________

04-04-2004, 12:27 PM	#24 (permalink)
mingusfingers Psycho Location: uhhhh	I don't need that kind of space, or want to keep old emails. I'll stick with what I have. __________________ Still Looking

04-04-2004, 03:09 PM	#25 (permalink)
skier Rawr! Location: Edmontania	"I don't need that speed, or want to fill it up. I'll stick with the Horse." __________________ "Asking a bomb squad if an old bomb is still "real" is not the best thing to do if you want to save it." - denim

04-05-2004, 09:07 AM	#26 (permalink)
Aletheia Psycho	I will try it though yahoo seems to be enough for what I do.

04-05-2004, 09:31 AM	#27 (permalink)
NoLa Crazy Location: St.Louis, MO	I really don't care about having to delete old emails if its that important i'll print it out. __________________ Through the warmest cord of care your love was sent to me I'm not sure what to do with it or where to put it

04-05-2004, 02:02 PM	#29 (permalink)
DelayedReaction BFG Builder Location: University of Maryland	Well I trust Google with my crappy mundane information. If I was going to transmit something that I was concerned would get me in trouble with law enforcement, I would be using an anonymous account from a public computer access point. __________________ If ignorance is bliss, you must be having an orgasm.

04-26-2004, 07:21 AM	#30 (permalink)
Supple Cow Americow, the Beautiful Location: Washington, D.C.	I'm drunk with storage space!!!!! AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Okay, not really. But I am LOVING gmail beta and I trust machines more than people under contract to keep my information a secret. Is anybody else using it yet? They offered it to me because I use Blogger. __________________ "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." (Michael Jordan)

04-26-2004, 09:50 PM	#32 (permalink)
PulpMind Addict Location: Portland	So one of my friends now has a GMail account. Yes, she has a 1 Gig. So far, she has not experienced any caps in sending. She has this account because she's very good friends with one of the lead programmers at Google. She's an anarchist of sorts. He's extremely lefty and anti corperate. They are both very concerned with their privacy, and looked into exactly what Google is doing before going ahead with their accounts. From what they've come to understand of it, Google is doing nothing more than data screening, information held momentarily for ad purposes, then discarded. Google is not in the business of knowing everything about you and narcing you to the feds, as that article would have one believe =P ... so if that bothers you, understandable, I suppose.. but I suggest not using your Windows or Mac OS (probably safest to just get rid of the computer), turn off the TV, and just to be safe, don't leave the house - because you're going to be a target market no matter where you go.