Google to offer e-mail.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-04-01 05:21pm

Google claims this isn't an April Fool's joke.

MSNBC wrote:
Search giant Google Inc. announced Wednesday that it would launch a free ad-supported Web-based e-mail service that would let each user store up to 1 gigabyte of data and include a built-in search function.

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The announcement of the new "Gmail" service was first reported by the New York Times and quickly reported by CNET News.com and wire outlets as well. The timing and wording of Google's press release, however, immediately generated speculation on online forums that the news was an elaborate April Fool's prank by Google.

Google spokesman David Krane, reached Wednesday night, admitted that the "color and personality" of the press release -- which is dated "April 1 UTC" and includes phrases such as "millions of M&Ms later, Gmail was born" -- "was indeed in the spirit of April 1" but said that Gmail was a serious product.

"We are beginning to test a free e-mail service," Krane told MSNBC.com.

For now, Google is only opening up the service to invited users but expects to make it accessible to everyone within a few weeks, Google co-founder Larry Page told The Associated Press.

A built-in search function will let people type in keywords to sort e-mails or find old missives. To finance the service, Google will display advertising links tied to the topics discussed within the e-mails. For instance, an e-mail inquiring about an upcoming concert might include an ad from a ticket agency.

At 1 gigabyte per user, Google will be offering more than 100 times the storage that some of its rivals do, enough to hold 500,000 pages of e-mail, the company said. Yahoo, the leader in free Web-based e-mail, offers 4MB of free e-mail storage. Microsoft's Hotmail, the No. 2 service, offers 2MB. (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)

Google will limit individual attachments to 10MB, Krane told MSNBC.com, and there will be terms of service to which users will be expected to adhere. Gmail accounts are currently set to expire after nine months of inactivity, Krane said. Hotmail deletes user e-mail after 30 days of inactivity; Yahoo declares accounts "dormant" after four months of inactivity.

Google has been ramping up a number of ancillary services in recent months, even as Yahoo and Microsoft have been making aggressive moves of their own toward taking on Google's dominance in search. Earlier this week, Google added a link to its Froogle shopping tool to its home page and said it was testing new services to deliver personalized search results and alerts.

Google is widely expected to sell shares in an initial public offering later this year, and some in Silicon Valley had predicted the company would roll out an e-mail service to match offerings from Yahoo and Microsoft.

“E-mail is the killer (application) for getting people to share information,” Gary Stein, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, told Reuters. Such information is seen by search providers as key to delivering more personalized results.

“It’s the march of Google toward being a destination,” Stein said, echoing a widely held view that the company is moving closer to being an Internet portal like Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN, with a full range of products and services from e-mail to online shopping.

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2004-04-01 05:36pm

Gigabyte! Christ, I don't think I've had a gigabyte of e-mail in my entire life.

And my Yahoo inbox has 6 meg not 4.

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-04-01 05:46pm

Does that mean I can pirate anime through email?

Sw33t.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2004-04-01 06:37pm

A gig? Jesus! How are they planning to do that?

Temjin · Post by **Temjin** » 2004-04-01 06:39pm

That can't be right. A whole gig of storage, for e-mail of all things, free of charge. This had got to be hoax.

Temjin · Post by **Temjin** » 2004-04-01 06:42pm

Rye wrote:A gig? Jesus! How are they planning to do that?

supposedly, all this is being paid through ad banners.

Yup. over 100,000 gigs of storage will be paid through ad banners.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-04-01 07:30pm

They could limit the size of attachments and most people probably won't even use 10MB, but we'll see if it pans out.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-04-01 07:52pm

a gig is one helluvalot of space. it seems i may have a replacement for my yahoo account assuming this thing goes up.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-04-01 10:01pm

Did you even read that? attachments limited to 10 megs. And they'll have some key word add targeter that scans the e-mail and delivers personal adds.

Temjin · Post by **Temjin** » 2004-04-01 10:39pm

darthdavid wrote:Did you even read that? attachments limited to 10 megs. And they'll have some key word add targeter that scans the e-mail and delivers personal adds.

It's still an entire gig of space free of charge. It just doesn't sound right to me that they can provide this just from ads.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-04-01 11:58pm

Disk space is pretty cheap nowadays and most users won't use anywhere near 1GB. They might try to use a statistical curve to calculate how much mail they'll use.

Also, they can still charge for premium services like POP3 or IMAP access.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2004-04-02 12:01am

A gig? Geez, that's an e-mail that could probably last me for several years, without once having to delete something, at least.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2004-04-02 02:09am

An April Fool's joke, of course. The "gig free space" gave it away.

Or is it?

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2004-04-02 04:00am

I'm not going to believe the gig part until they launch the service. But man, if that's true, I hope that also includes POP

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-04-02 09:53am

storage space is relatively cheap, so no reason not to make it a gig. bandwidth is where it hurts the wallet. plus they might limit the size of attachments that can be sent over email, as to prevent swapping illegal files and the like.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-04-02 12:17pm

Hamel wrote:I'm not going to believe the gig part until they launch the service. But man, if that's true, I hope that also includes POP

No, webmail only so they can use their text ads. POP or IMAP access might be a premium service.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2004-04-02 10:56pm

Darth_Zod wrote:storage space is relatively cheap, so no reason not to make it a gig. bandwidth is where it hurts the wallet. plus they might limit the size of attachments that can be sent over email, as to prevent swapping illegal files and the like.

*cough* RAR *cough*

Hobot · Post by **Hobot** » 2004-04-03 11:24pm

Hmm, there appear to be some concerns regarding this new service.

See this link too...

Mitth`raw`nuruodo · Post by **Mitth`raw`nuruodo** » 2004-04-03 11:57pm

Hobot wrote:Hmm, there appear to be some concerns regarding this new service.

See this link too...

The first link no worky. As to the second one: Scary. Makes sense too.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-04-04 12:21am

The first link should work, except that El Reg is apparently down.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-04-05 11:07pm

Hobot wrote:Hmm, there appear to be some concerns regarding this new service.

See this [http://www.google-watch.org/email.html] too...

Also see this:
http://www.google-watch-watch.org/

Google-watch is run by a tinfoil-hat type.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2004-04-06 12:33am

Pu-239 wrote:Google-watch is run by a tinfoil-hat type.

Any sufficiently successful individual or organization attracts those things like flies to honey.