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Gmail Hype Ending

alterego [PersonRank 2]

Wednesday, June 23, 2004
20 years ago

I have thought a bit about it, and although we may be caught up in this hype and I am sure Google has had fun creating it, I think they are much more interested in pushing out a good product than riding a wave. And we know from watching Google Labs that things which aren't ready for prime time don't make it to prime time.

Also keep in mind that Google is in it for the long term. Remember the password question for google[put at-character here]gmail.com? (see here: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum100/42.htm)

It was "What is Google's most important property, besides search, in 2008?".

I bet you can guess the answer to that, and it's still 4 years off. They still have a corporate culture, however liberal it may be, and I am sure they have the entire 4 years planned out already.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum100/42.htm

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

20 years ago #

I think Google pretty much only shields itself from people signing up for 1,000 of Gmails at once for whatever evil reasons. Pretty much everyone else on the 'net surely can get a single invite these days if he or she tries hard enoug. Or visits this forum :)

I do not believe Google intends to create a hype like the one we saw on eBay, where emails were auctioned for high prices – but I do believe e.g. their 1st April meta-April's Fool was very cleverly planned (and achieved just the attention Google wanted).

There are two great things about invite-only services like Orkut or Gmail which made them a success:
- People just love what they can't get, thus want it even more
- People are proud to hand out invitations, thus they will do the work of convincing others to use it

This goes on in an endless cycle (new users inviting new users inviting new users...) until the whole thing goes public.

Of course with all the Gmail frenzy it helped that Gmail is seriously great. We should not forget *why* 1 GB sounded like a joke on April 1st. Because until then, it was just unthought of by anybody else but Google to provide such a generous, reasonable storage for free. I immediately deserted my Hotmail and wrote this good-bye...
http://blogoscoped.com/farewell-to-hotmail.html

Mikhail [PersonRank 1]

20 years ago #

I just thought: What if Google is going to keep number of GMail users limited for years.

Maybe GMail is going one of those beta-forever programs that they have at http://labs.google.com

I believe that Google will find a way to run Gmail at the minimum cost and getting from it maximum hype and PR while forcing its competitors into a great deal of financial burdens: http://nigritude-ultramarine-contest.blogspot.com/2004/06/yahoo-hotmail-and-ask-jeeves-vs-gmail.html

If nothing else Google Engineers are The Masters of PR (in all meanings of the word :)

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

20 years ago #

I'm almost sure users worldwide would protest :)

alterego [PersonRank 2]

20 years ago #

Mikhail you can feel confident holding your breath. September is only 3 months off :)

Timothy Beyer [PersonRank 1]

19 years ago #

What exactly is soooo great about web-based email?

Also, am I the only one fed up with "free as in beer" email?

And finally, who in their right mind needs 1 GB of space when it can't be used for illegal activity. (obviously the only practical use) 1 GB might be useful for a corporation, but I'm sure corporations already have much better email services which cost almost nothing to them considering profit margins.

For my personal email, I'd rather pay $20/yr (or one time fee for less overkill features, good enough for me) and have a real email service, (I'm not going to name the service because I'm not trying to advertise here) with pop3/imap. I have an account with [provider omitted], and I can assure you it works well, just without the mindless hype.

Or, better yet, just use my university email account. Which has all the features I could ever dream of, (and yes it does include bullshit email for those rare, rare occasions when I acutally need it) and then some, and I don't have to pay a dime for it.

Timothy Beyer [PersonRank 1]

19 years ago #

*bullshit email -> bullshit webmail

That's what I meant to say.

Alterego [PersonRank 2]

19 years ago #

I think the 5 million invite-only Gmail users disagree with you. Perhaps only 1 million of them actually use the account, but so far Google is only letting us in through the doggy-door.

Aside from that, the archival benefits of 1GB of web based e-mail are obvious. And who would use that much space?

I only have 200MB left.

tubes [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

i use gmail, and agree the search feature is incredible, you cant see yourself useing it until your trying to find that long lost conversation, but cant recall the date or person you were speaking with

if someone sends you media or a useful tidbit, so sense in writing it down or saving it elsewhere, you can google search it in your email
great i love i want to cuddle and fondle it
goodday

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