1GB free email from Google (Gmail)

dod · 01-04-2004 11:20AM #1

http://gmail.google.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3588933.stm

Google plans rival e-mail service
Google, the world's most popular internet search engine, plans to offer a e-mail service called Gmail in a bid to rival Yahoo and Microsoft's Hotmail.

The new service will take away the need to delete unwanted messages and organise e-mails according to topic.

The service is not generally available yet, but will be offered free of charge on www.gmail.com.

Google mail provides one gigabyte of storage - many times more than existing rivals that also offer free e-mail.

Each user would have storage equivalent to 500,000 pages of e-mail, said Google.

Idea followed complaints

The idea came to one of Google's founders, Larry Page, after listening to complaints from a Google user. She said she was spending all her time filing messages or trying to find them and "deleting like crazy" just to keep within the storage limits. She asked, "Can't you people fix this?"

Google has a commanding lead in the global search market, although its market share has shrunk sharply during the past month after Yahoo stopped using Google technology to power its searches.

GMail is a new approach to email which takes advantage of a search facility and would group messages displaying them as a conversation.

Yahoo is now using its own search engines, which it developed after buying search companies Inktomi, Overture and Altavista.

Google is privately-owned, but expected to float on the stock market later this year, a deal that could value Google at up to $25bn (£14.7bn) - slightly more than listed online retailer Amazon.

The California-based company says it has expanded its web index to include more than six billion items.

Four billion of these are web pages, while Google has also put more effort into the size of its picture database.

Google is by far the world's most popular internet search engine. It has had a meteoric rise since the company was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Stark · 01-04-2004 11:22AM

God bless the April Fool's jokes

tman · 01-04-2004 11:25AM

heh, thats a guddun. had me salivating for a second:)

smoke.me.a.kipper · 01-04-2004 11:31AM

im believeing nothing today. would've been nice tho

Karoma · 01-04-2004 12:01PM

it's actually legit.
there's been talk of being able to "google your mail" for a while now.. google have actually taken it upon themselves to do it. wow.

weh weh

Enygma · 01-04-2004 12:07PM

It seems legit so far, it's a good way to get a feel for demand though, spreading the news as a potential April Fools.

Emboss · 01-04-2004 12:13PM

It's no joke....

lynchie · 01-04-2004 12:15PM

http://gmail.google.com

Stark · 01-04-2004 12:17PM

The website means nothing. Would have taken 5 minutes to put that together for the sake of a joke. I've seen whole wonderful project sties complete with preliminary documentation spring up on April's Fools Day.

1GB of FREE e-mail storage with the coolness factor of an @gmail.com address? It it sounds too good to be true, then it is

Karoma · 01-04-2004 12:19PM

Originally posted by lynchie
http://gmail.google.com

wow! oh wait... *looks at THE VERY FIRST THREAD* .... :rolleyes:

Emboss · 01-04-2004 12:21PM

Originally posted by k.oriordan
The website means nothing. Would have taken 5 minutes to put that together for the sake of a joke. I've seen whole wonderful project sties complete with preliminary documentation spring up on April's Fools Day.

1GB of FREE e-mail storage with the coolness factor of an @gmail.com address? It it sounds too good to be true, then it is

the PRESS RELEASE itself is a JOKE

the product being discussed in it,is NOT.

Karoma · 01-04-2004 12:25PM

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum86/235.htm

other plebs discussing what this is discussing... plebmania.

oneweb · 01-04-2004 12:25PM

The service is not generally available yet

Got that far before I realised the date had summat ado wif it! :dunno:

Rabies · 01-04-2004 12:33PM

There is no way it is true.
Each account could have 1GB of storage for free.
Maybe in some dream world this might be true but not in this one.
The initial cost for Google would be huge. No one would need such a large email account, its only purpose could be to store large files, patches, projects and porn. Most of which is freely available anyway.
Good April Fools joke, it had me going for a min.

briano · 01-04-2004 12:41PM

According to the register they made a spoof press release, but the service is going ahead.

http://theregister.co.uk/content/6/36714.html

Oriel · 01-04-2004 12:42PM

I'm not sure. The only thing that doesn't seem beliveable about this is the 1Gb storage space the rest seems OK.
Thing is, there's a lot of info on the service there if it is just a joke...

Rabies · 01-04-2004 12:46PM

Originally posted by briano
According to the register they made a spoof press release, but the service is going ahead.

Could it be possible that Google has fooled more than one media source :eek:

Karoma · 01-04-2004 12:48PM

"1000 megabytes of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message"

where does it say 1000 megabytes for each user?

Emboss · 01-04-2004 12:51PM

Originally posted by Karoma
"1000 megabytes of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message"

where does it say 1000 megabytes for each user?

Google have this policy where they assume the person is not a complete ****ing idiot....

silly google.

Rabies · 01-04-2004 12:52PM

Originally posted by Karoma
"1000 megabytes of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message"

where does it say 1000 megabytes for each user?

Google mail provides one gigabyte of storage - many times more than existing rivals that also offer free e-mail.

Good point.

Karoma · 01-04-2004 12:54PM

Originally posted by Emboss
Google have this policy where they assume the person is not a complete ****ing idiot....

silly google.

Where? I don't see that in the policy..

<aside: *screaming* i got a bite!>

penguinbloke · 01-04-2004 01:03PM

Just checked the USA today article and it was posted at 3/31/2004 11.27 PM.

and all that seems dodgy is the size, so maybe it's legit.

viking · 01-04-2004 01:19PM

Whatever about about Gmail being a real service or not, the real technology behind Google's success was discovered some time ago.

viking

lynchie · 01-04-2004 01:24PM

Originally posted by Karoma
wow! oh wait... *looks at THE VERY FIRST THREAD* .... :rolleyes:

hmm.. didnt spot that.. just saw the bbc link

ChipZilla · 01-04-2004 02:04PM

Google are well known for taking the mick: :rolleyes:

[url]http://www.google.com/mentalplex/[/url] (Google's April Fool for 2000)

[url]http://www.google.com/intl/xx-elmer/[/url] (Google's April Fool for 2001)

[url]http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/[/url]

[url]http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/[/url]

[url]http://www.google.com/intl/xx-piglatin/[/url]

[url]http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html[/url] (Google's April Fool for 2002)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1078997.htm

Come on, a Gig of storage?

bus77 · 01-04-2004 02:32PM

heh, with one gig of storage, google would become the next big warez source

send me a game will ya?:D

Karoma · 01-04-2004 02:32PM

previous spoofs were just changing (pronunciation of) words,etc - they have never done this sort of thing before.. posting stuff like this from them to business journals,were it fake would lead to lawsuits/bannings,etc. (how much has google stock gone up?)

sutty · 01-04-2004 02:47PM

Originally posted by Karoma
previous spoofs were just changing (pronunciation of) words,etc - they have never done this sort of thing before.. posting stuff like this from them to business journals,were it fake would lead to lawsuits/bannings,etc. (how much has google stock gone up?)

Their privet owned aren't they? so they aren't on the market yet...

as for the 1Gig of space.... for free..... only a fool would fall for that! :rolleyes:

Karoma · 01-04-2004 02:50PM

can never find a link when i need to...

bah! you're so paranoid.. i mean...really! the bit about coming with a free porn is unbelievable,but 1 gig... why not?

ChipZilla · 01-04-2004 02:52PM

Originally posted by Karoma
previous spoofs were just changing (pronunciation of) words,etc - they have never done this sort of thing before.. posting stuff like this from them to business journals,were it fake would lead to lawsuits/bannings,etc. (how much has google stock gone up?)

They haven't even had an IPO yet, so they're still a private company. And if you look at the links in my previous post their previous spoofs were not all "just changing (pronunciation of) words,etc ". They've got a sense of humour. It's just that some people reading this stuff don't...:rolleyes:

AdMMM · 01-04-2004 02:53PM

from: http://www.google.com/gmail/help/about.html#signup

2. How much does Gmail cost?

Gmail is a free service and includes 1,000 megabytes of storage with each account. However, Gmail is still in preview mode as we test it to work out the kinks. So for now, it's not generally available.

Im in mixed minds about this!

1GB free email from Google (Gmail)

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