GMAIL - Google Announces Their e-mail service

Part 2

[Chris_R]

Continued From:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Original Links:

[biz.yahoo.com...]

[mercurynews.com...]

[wired.com...]

[gmail.google.com...]

[lasko]

Oh well here in europe we still see it after 12pm so if it is a April Fools then they are now officially the fools in Europe :)

I for one dare I say believe its for real what I don't believe is the 1GB that is huge!

Google was always knocked down in the IPO debate for not having a sticky service type for example something that causes the public to return every day like Yahoo and MSN.

If Google was to take this direction then it would silence the critics about their non sticky services and provide a new gateway to provide targeted ads.

The Luna Job Offer is the April Fool but i very much doubt the Gmail is.

So I will put myself in a position now and say this.

Its not an April Fool!

(if it is an April Fool or not they have just managed to get the biggest free advertising exposure the internet has seen for a long time)

[keeper]

I'm not seeing gmail.com anymore --> DNS error.

In Australia - will try to confirm from more than one machine....

<added>www.gmail.com and gmail.google.com are still down. http*//gmail.com is up</added>

[edited by: keeper at 10:53 am (utc) on April 1, 2004]

[Dynamoo]

Oh dear people are *so* gullible, aren't they? 1Gb of mailbox storage each? Yeah right! And as for the wording of the press release, it's an obvious leg pull.

I think it's cleverer than the PigeonRank though - and I suspect that there *is* some truth here - those TOSes and other information look like they're from a real product, and the AdSense on the mail is a no-brainer idea which both Google and Advertisers will like.

Basically.. this looks to me like an April Fool's teaser to keep people interested in the REAL mail service when it appears.

[steveb]

Tips for the humor challenged:

Joke: "Apply for a job on the moon."

Non-joke: "We will soon be offering email."

[HenryUK]

What is the stuff that takes up space in email accounts? It isn't the text of the message, it's the attachments - you know, the stupid gags that go round and round. So Google keeps one copy of each kitten animation or whatever and it's accessed when required, giving people the impression that they're using up a lot of storage.

Nevertheless, the Gmail thing is a hoax. I know, because I was the sushi chef with Hanson and can confirm that the lunar thing is genuine...

[trillianjedi]

Releasing this on April 1st - absolute genius marketing.

TJ

[py9jmas]

The Guardian's report:

Confusingly, Google issued a jokey April 1 press release announcing the email service, headed: "Search is number two online activity - email is number one: 'heck, yeah,' say Google founders".
...
Nevertheless, the email offering is real.

Full article:
[guardian.co.uk...]

Jon

[roscoepico]

I'm sitting at the cafe @ 6 this morning and came across a mention of this service in the paper edition of USAToday. In the article they mentioned they would be serving adwords based on the subject matter, if there was talk of new cars in the email, they would then serve up adwords based on new cars, etc. This made me cut breakfast short and run to the office to try to research adwords being served up in emails as my first thought is that this could be abused big time by a clever spammer/competitor. Blast out a million emails containing subject matter that would cause our adwords to appear and run my account dry.

[edited by: roscoepico at 4:00 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]

[loanuniverse]

Releasing this on April 1st - absolute genius marketing.

I don't know about that TJ, the audience that is actually going to even know about this release is limited {100,000 worldwide?}, and most of them are going to be tech geeks that read corners of the web such as this. I wonder if it has gotten slash-dotted already....

The only way that it will really be properly marketed will be through the property itself.

Funny thing is that even if it is a joke, I think that Google might eventually get into the business of being a portal and offer an email service. I just can't get pass the language and the 1 Gig of space.

Me= I am emailing myself backups of my website... I think I just solved my remote location storage problem. ;)

[258cib]

Hold on roscoe. Would G put ads on emails without getting their advertisers' permission first?

Well, now that I think about it, they might.

But, they shouldn't. G should make this an option for marketers. And, BTW, they should give marketers a choice of targeting search (AdWords), web sites (AdSense) and emails (Ad*****).

[258cib]

Me= I am emailing myself backups of my website... I think I just solved my remote location storage problem. ;)

Wow! It didn't take long for someone to come up with that.

[blaze]

Probably won't work, unless you email yourself html files.

The 1 Gig probably just applies to compressable text. Binary data (low compression ratios) probably counts for more.

[trillianjedi]

loanuniverese - it's all over the national papers in the UK.

I just can't get pass the language and the 1 Gig of space.

The whole "is it a joke/isn't it a joke" is a big point of discussion. Google are marketing it as a "too good to be true" product.

The timing was not accidental. It's very very clever. Wish I'd thought of it...

TJ

[richmondsteve]

I believe that gmail is real and that the press release timing was just clever PR.

As far as 1 GB of disk space goes, think out of the box. The average user will be using a small fraction of the allotted space, even after the service is mature. Google could allow 100 GB of disk space and it would make little difference in terms of the average space used per user. Hard drives, bandwidth and associated costs will continue to go down. Compared to likely Adwords revenue, revenue from anxillary services and other benefits, the associated incremental costs for each user will be trivial.

[edited by: richmondsteve at 1:48 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]

[Richie0x]

Well I would use it, if they didn't put their text ads in the emails, which is just cheeky >:¦ It may be a quality email service, but they must have seen this as a chance to make even more money from adsense.

[mfishy]

<<Joke: "Apply for a job on the moon."
Non-joke: "We will soon be offering email." >>

LOL! I don't believe anything I read and only half of what I see :)

[elgumbo]

The other question is, will you be happy sending emails to customers on gmail knowing full well that your competitors adverts will appear in it?

Jumping the gun a little here, (alright a lot) but maybe stage 2 is to charge the sender so that ads don't appear at all.

Now, I wish I had thought of that :)

[Clark]

This is all about PR. Google is making webmasters talk about it more by releasing it this way. The Press Release does sound phony. That was done so that people would think it *might* be a joke. But it is for real. And GG coming in to fuel the speculation is part of the PR too. Nice work GG ;)

[Mardi_Gras]

>Google are marketing it as a "too good to be true" product.

How about "too scary to be true." Google storing your e-mails, analyzing every one to learn all they can about you - only, of course, in the interest of serving you ads. Right.

And as another poster pointed out - they will keep that e-mail even after you terminate your account. If it wasn't so scary it would be funny.

[trillianjedi]

How about "too scary to be true."

I wasn't commenting on the service they're going to offer - only the marketing.

If you want privacy, don't use a free mail provider.

TJ

[encyclo]

They've registered gmail.ca too - and probably a whole bunch of others. Is there anyone here who still thinks its a joke?

Some superb marketing going on here, and a great way of building a buzz around your project!

[Chndru]

They have an amazing PR machine buzzing on the backyard of G. I'm impressed.

Anyone got an "invite" yet?

[edited by: Chndru at 2:47 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]

[SlyOldDog]

>>As part of Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, we're testing an email service called Gmail.

So not satisfied with indexing all public content they want to index the private content too and make it searchable? Man, and they wonder why there are conspiracy theories! Who else is going to be searching my e-mails?

Where's the phone number for GoogleWatch?

[celerityfm]

Didn't google recently purchase a company that specialized in generating ads based on text on a webpage? And didn't that spur speculation that Google would launch some kind of email service?

Where are the posts/links to that? It would be interesting to review that in light of this announcement. Did GoogleGuy say anything yet? :)

<<EDIT>> Found it, here it is: [theregister.co.uk...]

Even more here: [slashdot.org...]

Really seems like this has been in the works for a long time now doesn't it?
<</EDIT>>

[edited by: celerityfm at 2:56 pm (utc) on April 1, 2004]

[creative craig]

Thank you for your interest in Gmail

Your email address has been submitted. We look forward to sending you Gmail updates.

I'm in :)

[Josk]

> This is all about PR. Google is making webmasters talk about
> it more by releasing it this way. The Press Release does
> sound phony. That was done so that people would think it
> *might* be a joke. But it is for real. And GG coming in to
> fuel the speculation is part of the PR too. Nice work GG

Yes, I can't wait to start work on the Moon. Just think of the airmiles...

[SEOMike]

The services include gMail, a powerful direct mail tool

Google could have pulled te URL from the defunct company that offered gMail.

The timing, roll out method, and everything about it is too strange to bode well with me. I also found myself searching the source code on every page that is related to Gmail and found no text to hint at a hoax.

If it's true... I know where I'm storing all of my high resolution pictures! And backup files, and MP3's etc etc...

[SEOMike]

PS...

AND there is no page rank... I've seen pages roll out in the G-Lab FULL of PR. I've visited one day, then come back the next, and a new item in the G-Lab has a PR of 8 or 9.

All the pieces just don't fit. And GoogleGuy's comment...

Man, I can't wait to read about Gmail in all the newspapers on April Fool's Day.

I for one am not falling for it. So, either way I'm a fool. If it's a crock and I believe it, I'm a fool, if it's real and I don't believe it, I'm a fool. Looks like the big G machine wins either way!

[jonknee]

I don't know about that TJ, the audience that is actually going to even know about this release is limited {100,000 worldwide?}, and most of them are going to be tech geeks that read corners of the web such as this. I wonder if it has gotten slash-dotted already....

It was a genius marketing move. Not only was it slashdotted a few hours after the PR (almost a 1,000 comments on it which is really hot for /.), I sent it to the DrudgeReport and he posted. That's a few million non-techies. I heard it on Paul Harvey this morning, a few million more non-techies. I saw it in USA Today, a few million more non-techies.

In fact, it's closing in on 300 hits on a Google News search--in a few days you will be hard pressed to find national media that hasn't covered it.

[EliteWeb]

Targetted ads to e-mails... Neat but kinda freaky. Is this googles next move to going portal like and having all features? gPortal, Doogle, poogle. ;)