googles free email 1gb

hey guys check out google is giving free email of 1gb space for each no ads no pop up
gmail.google.com

it is under test

beware of anything that has the word FREE in it as is explained in this article!

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2004/04/02/20040402_142404_flash.htm

They are reading every mail message and inserting Text advertisements based on keywords in your email message.

Thread moved from 'PHP Coding' to 'General Chat' by zombie.

Reason:

What's the problem with them posting ads that correlate to the content of the email? They are being upfront about exactly what they are doing and no where are they saying they will be making the exact content of email available to anyone else (i.e., the public or advertisers). If you are looking for a secure and confidential email system, I wouldn't trust any free or low cost web-based system. This system seems fine for the average internet users that Hotmail, Yahoo, and dozens of other sites cater to.

The 1GB limit is fairly uninteresting in my opinion - it is simply a feature to gain a competitive advantage over other services with very limited quotas. Maybe I get a lot less email than everybody else (I figure about 30MB a year for personal email), but how many people get 1GB of email, let alone keep it around?

I think it will be interesting if they publish stats about the content of email similar to the statistics they produce about searches: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html.

The 1Gig of email storage would be nice if people email you alot of pictures or other larger files. I some times run into quota problems when people send me large groups of files.

Personaly, I'm glad to see Google spreading its tenticals to other aspects of the internet. It seems to have the search thing under control, why not give them the chance to better some of the other bread and butter features of the internet.

Honcho is correct.. I never use the free email accounts for confidential emails.
As DorkRawk pointed out it will be handy for handling huge files.. Specially pics and small video clips.. No need to worry about the quota issue..

i don't like this so much.. i mean, i _love_ google search, but i believe in doing one thing, and doing it good (or the best if you will). you can't be an expert at everything..

remember yahoo in the good old days? for those of you who don't, yahoo started just like google, as a search engine.. but then, slowly it added all that stupid portal stuff (also started with mail, again like google), and then it became unusable.. the search got worse, and other stuff was never as interesting (to me at least).

that is why the minute google come on to the scene, it blown yahoo away..

so, no, i don't like it one bit. i might use google mail, but i don't have to like it.. ;)

Actually I believe Yahoo started out as a way of organizing the co-creators' links to things that interested them. That's why it's always basically presented itself as a hierarchy of links.



I like Google's search too, but careful about what you claim. Yahoo has been the single site with the most hits for a long time (at least the past 2 years according to alexa.com). MSN is next. Google is #3, but 2 years ago was #5. Look here for more. (I realize that page hits does not mean a site is good, but it's much easier to compare than personal feelings.)

From what I've read, Google's Gmail service seems like a pretty natural extension of their search technology. They started by searching text on the web. Then they added things like images and news. They also added usenet groups. Now they are try to apply their search tech to email. I think a problem will be that you only have access to your own email, so there just isn't very much to search through. If they start storing email from public email lists, that could make it interesting, because now there is more to search through for relevant results.



Hmm... I give the same answer about Windows.

first of all, alexa is not that unbiased. all that some webmaster has to do to boost his alexa ratings is to advertise alexa toolbar on his site. ie, if matt did that, codewalkers.com would jump up by an order of 10 or even more (test question: how many of you have alexa toolbar?)

anyway, when i said google blown yahoo away, i meant in the search business, not in general. yahoo has many more services, and content, and.. you come to google, enter one 1.2 words in the box, click search, and leave google. that are only two page hits (if you come to the homepage at all. i _always_ search from the firefox search bar (ctrl-k)).

on the other hand, you come to yahoo for your mail. that is at least 4-5 pageviews just to read one message (login, click inbox, click message, ...). you can't compare services like google and yahoo with pagehits (and especially not with inaccurate predicament of pagehits that alexa does). apples to oranges.

so, i say it again, google blown yahoo away in the search business. that is just fact. if that wasn't true, yahoo wouldn't use google results for couple of years (up until a month ago)..

i still stay behind my original "do one thing, but do it good!" (or best if possible)..

You're right, there are problems with the stats I pointed too, but those are the best I've seen and I have no concrete reason to believe that Alexa neccessarily favors Yahoo over Google. Do you know of any others? Do Yahoo and Google publish how many searches they perform?



OK, but I don't think searching through email (the basic reason behind Gmail in the press releases) is that much outside of what Google already does. If you strictly adhere to the "do one thing well" mantra, you stifle innovation. If an ice cream store has really good chocolate ice cream, does that mean they shouldn't try to make other flavors?

If they don't lose the popularity they have for the chocalte ice cream, they can. By trying to make other flavors if they mess up with the chocolate ice cream then they are in trouble.

i didn't say alexa favors yahoo, only implied that yahoo may be favored by alexa ratings (not by alexa company on purpose).

just a quick info on how alexa works. they count what sites you visit, and how often (if you have the toolbar), and sum that for all their users, and get ratios like "yahoo has 3 times more pagehits than google (by alexa users)".

it is my feeling (not based on facts, but..) that yahoo is used more by general population (because of other services), and google more by us "IT professionals". also, i don't know much professionals that have alexa toolbar (but maybe regular users do).

so that is why alexa rankings might be biased towards yahoo..

i don't have a good source for stats on number of searches performed, but i have seen some, and i think they can be found.

but the thing about them is that up until a month ago, yahoo used google results, so it was pointless to compare those values. (if i remember, google results were used more than 65%, but that was including yahoo and similar partner sites).

i think we need to wait some time for the new results, because yahoo's own search engine is still young (and yet has to get better), and because current users of yahoo are probably using it out of habit (from the time of good google results).



i think nazly understood me. no need to stifle innovation (google search was innovative at the time), just no need to spread your business, and try to do everything. if you try that, you will probably end up doing nothing..

I didn't read anyone mention the idea of "Harvesting Email" for spam. If they now have "approved" access to your email and you get a whole gig to store them, image how many emails they get to list and sell to the spammers !! And those who use the service (as well as anyone you email to) will get this nice little heading or footer

"Your are receiving this this email because you signed in......"

I agree with bearqst... I get enough spam as it is, I would not want all the mail I want to read to have embedded spam... It just seems like a step backwards in the fight against spam.

I don't think google intends on becomming anything like yahoo. Just look how clean their main page has been kept all these years. There search service is the best, their news source is great, their product search is getting better all the time. I think what they bring to email will only raise the bar for other companies to follow.