Gmail: Redefining Mail

Google has started the email wars with the introduction (still in beta stage) of Gmail, Google mail for short. For most people the main attraction has been the 1GB (1000MB) storage that Gmail offers. In the coming months, however, that would stop being such a big deal. Yahoo mail has already increased its storage to 100 MB for free accounts and 2GB for paid accounts (nominal charges). Rediffmail has also announced 1GB (free) already and soon most free mail providers will follow suite. They will have to! In this war of mailbox sizes, Gmail's unique experimentation with web-based mail, in terms of its spread of features, might get lost. And that would be a pity. This article takes an overview of Gmail.

What is Gmail?

Gmail is Google's free web-based email, that boasts of 1GB storage, and a different way of looking at web-mail. It's still in beta stage, meaning it's open only for test purpose, before the actual launch, when any and every person could get a Gmail account. As of now, Gmail account can be had only through invitations. Google distributes these invitations as and when they want more users to test, through existing users. I was fortunate enough to get one such invitation pretty early, and the experience with Gmail has left me convinced that even as a beta, Gmail is a serious threat to the existing mail providers like yahoo, Hotmail, etc.

The most promising thing about Gmail is of course that it is a Google product. And Google, if its history is a guide, is company with a difference. When most search engines were out diversifying, cluttering their search interface with lots of junk, Google stuck to the KISS philosophy -- Keep It Simple Stupid. And, they concentrated on their strength, which was search. Today, Google is synonymous with search -- with Googling being used for web-searching. Many of Google's competitors are now its customers!

With Gmail also Google is venturing into a new field, with its core-expertise as its main weapon. Gmail is built around Google's powerful search capabilities.

Features and Interface!

Admittedly, Google's interface is a bit nerdy. Conventional wisdom would tell you that if you're launching a product, keep the interface recognizable with the existing and dominant interfaces. But if they followed the conventional wisdom, Google wouldn't be Google. However, once one gets used to the differences, it's not that strange. What are the features that Gmail provides?

Conversations: In Gmail, messages are organized as conversation threads, rather than in a chronological order. So if you send a mail to a group of people, and then all of you engage in a discussion on emails, all those emails would be clubbed together as a conversation. This is the feature that's common to many email/news clients, but none of the major free mail providers give this feature. Conversations feature helps tremendously when you're engaged in such email discussions. When you click on a conversation, Gmail also does few smart things such as opening only those mails that are unread, while read mails are shown as a one line header summary.

Labels: Gmail does not have a formal concept of "folders". All the mail is archived together. You can label a message with a symbolic tag, which can be used for searching or displaying mails thus tagged. There is still an INBOX, a sent-mail and a trash (and archived-messages). But a message can be in any of these and still have an additional label. The advantage being that, your sent messages and received messages can still be clubbed (and indeed searched) with a specific label. In normal folder view, that is not possible, you need to search in each folder separately (and that too with complicated searches).

Search: This has got to be the best, with Google! The search feature is really flexible and powerful. The best thing being ability to search in all-mail, that is your INBOX, archive, sent-mail and even trash. There is a search-language defined, just like the Google search. There is also a more user friendly search, if you don't want to learn/use the search language. This is one of the most comprehensive mail searching that I've seen. So much, that I'm not sure I'm going to use even a part of this power.

Miscellaneous Helpful Features: Gmail's beta interface also has so many small and helpful functionalities and features, that makes me wonder what the real stuff will offer. Google maintains your contact list on its own. So when you start typing the address/name of the recipient, you get completion hints just like your desktop client. Gmail's compose screen has various tabs -- like reply, reply all, forward etc. The advantage being that say you started by replying and wrote half of your reply and realized it should have been reply-all. No problem, no need to save, go back, cut-n-paste. Just click on the relevant tag, and voila! There are the normal features like filters (which can do multiple things at a time -- like starring a message, archiving it, labeling it and so on).

What's Wrong with it?

Not all is well of course. Missing is any integration with desktop tools that intimate you when a new mail comes. Missing is facility to read mails from external mailboxes. There is no way to disable conversations and move back to chronological display for those inclined that way. Too many clicks (not page fetches, per se, but still clicks, as Gmail has almost on-demand views for everything from recipients addresses to, showing quoted texts etc). In general, Gmail has done lot of configuration which is not alterable -- configurability as such is limited. But the biggest concern has to be privacy, and it is.

Gmail's business model is such that your mails will be automatically scanned and relevant (which is a misnomer, if you ask me!) ads will be pushed along side that mail. This raises a privacy issue, but frankly, it's no human operator sitting there and reading your mails. Those who are concerned about privacy should not be using any web based mail at all. It's definitely not for the paranoid. However, the privacy issue is going to be a main point of trouble for Gmail as its competitors are going to make a noise about it. If you are okay with the policy, thought, Gmail is definitely worth giving a try. Chances are, you'll make it your primary account.