COMPUTING
Google mail looks promising as a select few try it out
By DWIGHT SILVERMAN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

The quickest way to get people to want your product is to tell most of them they can't have it. Give it to just a handful of "special" folks, then stand back and watch the riot begin.


The view of the melee must be sweet to the honchos at Google, who have created a stampede of desire among the digirati for Gmail, a free e-mail service not yet available to mere mortals.

Since its beta test began — Google will only say its current user base is in the "thousands" — Gmail accounts have become hot commodities on eBay, and at least one Web site (www.gmailswap.com) has been created as an online bazaar where accounts can be traded for goods and services.

Google won't say when Gmail will be open to everyone, which only adds to the allure.

It's not all marketing magic, however. Gmail really is different and already better than its competition in many ways. I suspect that, the exclusivity play notwithstanding, it will be a big hit once it's open to everyone.

One of Google's many smart moves in testing Gmail was to give accounts to technology reporters and columnists, who've since been writing paeans of geek love in its honor. I'm one of the chosen few, and I'll also sing its praises. But for those of you suddenly experiencing the ugly flush of envy — one of the seven deadly sins, mind you — let me give you some relief:

It really is just an e-mail account. Honest.

But you can't have mine!

There are three features that make Gmail unique:

• Users have a gigabyte of e-mail storage space, far more than any other free service offers. For example, Yahoo offers only 4 megabytes (though Yahoo officials announced this week it would bump that up to 100 megabytes, still only a 10th of Gmail's storage).

• Rather than sorting e-mail into folders, Gmail encourages its users to rely on Google's renowned search capabilities to find specific items.

• Gmail is free because its costs are covered by advertising. Ads appear on the right side of Gmail's viewing window and change based on the content of the e-mail being read at the time.

This last item has raised concern among privacy advocates, who worry about confidentiality. California's Senate this week even approved a bill that would limit how Google could implement Gmail. But having used Gmail since late April, I think these fears are unfounded and, frankly, based on ignorance.

No humans — except for the sender and recipient, of course — read users' e-mail. Google uses the same technique for generating the ads that it employs on Web sites that sign up for its context-sensitive advertising program. The text is scanned by a computer, which finds key words and displays advertisements associated with them.

For example, if you get mail from Mom raving about a new restaurant, you might see ads for that kind of eatery. I found many of my e-mails don't generate ads at all. I'm just too boring, I guess ...

In fact, Google's ads are less intrusive than those found at other e-mail sites. No ads are imbedded in e-mails you send from Gmail to others. The Gmail site has no banner or pop-up ads. In fact, the ads are less apparent than the minimalist, text-only ones you see on the right side of Google's search engine results pages.

Gmail's layout is simple and clean, and it is almost completely text-based. (To see a screen shot of Gmail's interface, visit the online version of this story at www.chron.com/technology.) That means it loads quickly, even on the slowest computers and Internet connections. The inbox is dynamic, so mail appears immediately upon arrival — no need to refresh the page to see new items, which is required with many Web-based e-mail services.

However, e-mail sometimes can take a while to show up. E-mail sent to a Hotmail account and Gmail invariably shows up in Hotmail much sooner. This could be a function of the beta test, if Google is using a limited number of servers to process mail.

As mail comes in, it is automatically sorted into what Gmail calls "conversations." Both outgoing and incoming items are grouped together under common subject lines, so you can quickly see a complete thread. Because most e-mail services and software place outgoing mail in a "Sent Items" folder, this may take some getting used to, but it's very convenient.

Once you're done reading a conversation, you clear it out of the inbox by clicking the Archive button. This hides older mail but leaves it open to Google's search feature, Gmail's strongest feature. I was able to find every piece of mail I was looking for on the first try, which sure beats combing through folders. The process was as fast as Google's Web searches, with results popping up instantly.

For those who can't shake loose of the folder metaphor, Gmail offers an alternative. You can label e-mail items, then sort by that label. The difference here is that you can apply multiple labels to each e-mail. For example, you could label Mom's e-mail about the restaurant as being about food and being from a family member.

With a gigabyte of storage, Gmail's operators encourage users not to delete anything. In fact, if you move something to Gmail's trash, then delete that item from the trash, you'll get this message: "No conversations in the trash. Who needs to delete when you have 1,000 MB of storage?!"

(As is the case with most of Google's products, a gentle, almost impish sense of humor prevails. When you clean out the inbox by archiving and thus hiding its contents, you'll see this message: "No new mail! There's always Google News if you're looking for something to read.")

Gmail has other features you'd expect to find in a Web-based e-mail service — including behind-the-scenes spam filtering as well as filters you can set up yourself — though it lacks others. You can't add an automated signature to the bottom of each e-mail, for example, nor can you access standards-based e-mail accounts, such as POP3, from Gmail.

However, Gmail is far from finished. What I'm testing now may be quite different from what the masses see when Google finally throws open the gates to the public.

HoustonChronicle.com - Computing: Google mail looks promising