Mindful Musings


4/23/2004

How to make Gmail popular

Filed under: — Mark @ 10:32 am

I know that a lot of really technical and judicial documentation and articles have been written and published about Gmail already. However, I have felt that they lacked any insights into what would really make that service popular. Even though there are screenshots available and Matt and quite a few others have gotten to beta test that service already, GMail is still an enigma for most of us. I guess Blogger users (in random) were chosen to be given a GMail account and I seem to be one of the ones that are not chosen :(
In the meantime, here are some things which could be done to GMail to make it more popular to me:

1) Ability to check other email accounts built into the system. I would really like to be able to receive emails from other providers through either POP3, IMAP or HTTP mail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo. That would increase the value of GMail to me tremendously.

2) I really couldnt care less if some person at Google was reading through my email (which I am sure is not the case, just some dufus computer) but I would really like assurances that my information would not be used for anything else but ads on my email pages. If I get any notion or suspicion of any hanky panky with my personal information, I am outta there. In other words, respect the EULA, dont send me spam, protect my email address from being harvested from the Google server and do not, under any circumstances, sell my address to anyone. I dont care how many text ads you put on the interface. Period. And….ummmm..no popups please!

3) I am really looking to consolidate my email services. I do this with Outlook right now. I have all my email addresses setup to be checked on Outlook and the application is set to delete all email after 10 days on the server. This gives me a chance to get the messages downloaded on another machine before getting deleted in case something goes awefully wrong somewhere. GMail should provide this sort of an integerated experience. This thought becomes even more pertinent when considering the fact that GMail provides us with this huge amount of storage which I could use as a possible main or backup solution for my email aggregation.

4) GMail should be only about email. At least GMail should provide the configuration option to be a pure email application. I really am not interested in reading news or RSS feeds through my email application but would like to see advanced email features. I want signatures, ability to do all kinds of monkeying with my email and would like to see a vertical reading pane if possible.

5) There should be some sort of auto check facility. This could be as simple as an open browser page which refreshes every so often (configurable of course) and shows the newly received email on that page. So, instead of opening up Outlook and leaving it open all day, I could open up a GMail window and just leave that open all day. Problem solved satisfactorily.

6) SPAM filter. I would really like to see a good spam filter on GMail. I have read very little documentation on the spam filter properties of GMail but am really really happy with the Spambayes that I use with my Outlook. Something like that would be great in GMail.

7) One click book marklets. Or at least integeration of GMail into the Google toolbar. That would be awesome! If the toolbar could check your email and tell you when you have new mail, have a short preview or something, that would just baste my turkey! Also, a Mozilla compatible toolbar would be nice or I will have to rewrite all of that code to work with the present incarnation of Google in Mozilla. Bookmarklets could be used to highlight and click from a browser window to send email directly through GMail. Those are some very powerful possibilities.

8) Heh, last but not the least, I would like an account to test with. Matt has one and so do many other people. I really need to get lucky with that one! :)

More ideas coming up as and when I know some more about GMail.
PS: for those of you that still think this was an April Fool’s joke, think again.

49 Comments »

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  1. Ping me via e-mail (jzawodn@gmail) and I’ll send you an invite. I have many left.

    Comment by Jeremy Zawodny 4/23/2004 @ 5:13 pm

  2. me 2 me 2. i need a gmail account :(
    and dinki why worried abt popups. not that u get them! :D

    Comment by Sushubh 4/24/2004 @ 4:59 pm

  3. me 2 me 2. i need a gmail account :(
    and dinki why worried abt popups. not that u get them! :D

    Comment by Sushubh 4/24/2004 @ 5:00 pm

  4. Great List of features. Help me spread the word about this petition to improve hotmail.
    http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/2004/04/hotmail_change_.html

    Comment by Peter Caputa 4/27/2004 @ 1:23 pm

  5. Great post. I very much agree. Just an FYI though, the members of Google Answers are supposed to get an account in the next couple of months.

    Comment by Josh Baltzell 4/28/2004 @ 12:56 pm

  6. salam

    Comment by ehsan 5/2/2004 @ 12:40 pm

  7. make gmail

    Comment by hossein 5/16/2004 @ 1:42 pm

  8. i want a gmail account

    Comment by peiman 5/25/2004 @ 7:26 am

  9. i wanna gmail account

    Comment by somratna 6/26/2004 @ 7:31 am

  10. i want to make a gmail

    Comment by daw 6/30/2004 @ 3:12 am

  11. goooooooooooooooood & so cooooooool.

    Comment by thingirl_ritchie 7/2/2004 @ 5:40 am

  12. I have an gmail account. write to this email fromt this email and I will invite 2-3 people :)

    Comment by bayes 7/5/2004 @ 6:52 am

  13. hello

    Comment by dogy boy 9/24/2004 @ 4:26 am

  14. Please invite me to the gmail . I want deepakgarg@gmail.com

    Comment by Deepak 9/28/2004 @ 6:25 am

  15. i want a gmail

    Comment by kesavan 10/3/2004 @ 10:17 am

  16. hi i want gmail account it cool plus lots of mail storage capicity. might me faster than othere email account.

    Comment by Omkar Ratna Bajracharya 10/8/2004 @ 12:23 am

  17. Hi thank you for all this efforts
    plz i want An account on Gmail
    i want its name elgendy124@gmail.com

    Comment by mohammed 12/15/2004 @ 2:21 pm

  18. please send me the account invitation of gmail

    Comment by mustaqeem 1/10/2005 @ 4:51 pm

  19. sent me an invitasion of gmail plsss to kyriacos.adamou@cytanet.com.cy

    Comment by mash 2/7/2005 @ 3:56 pm

  20. how can i make Gmail if any one can help me to getit..thanks

    Comment by kurdo 3/1/2005 @ 4:36 pm

  21. i want to make Gmail account plz help me is there anybody who guide me how to make Gmail account

    Comment by Mohsin 3/7/2005 @ 6:51 am

  22. i want to make Gmail account plz help me is there anybody who guide me how to make Gmail account

    Comment by Mohsin 3/7/2005 @ 6:54 am

  23. send me an invitation to make a Gmail account

    Comment by Mohsin 3/7/2005 @ 6:56 am

  24. Plz send me an invitation to make a Gmail account

    Comment by Jibran 3/7/2005 @ 7:01 am

  25. plz send me an invitation to make a Gmail account

    Comment by Adeel 3/9/2005 @ 6:38 am

  26. Dear Sir,

    I want to have an gmail account. Please suggest me on how to create an Gmail.

    Thanking you,
    Sandip Sahu

    Comment by Sandip Sahu 3/9/2005 @ 8:15 am

  27. i desperatly need GMAIL account and for that i need the invites! plz if anyone is left with the invites then plzz be kind enuf to send them to me…
    thanks

    Comment by aman 3/17/2005 @ 1:12 pm

  28. hi i want to gmail account pleaese invite me to make account

    Comment by junaid 3/19/2005 @ 11:02 am

  29. I Want A Gmail Account

    Comment by hmadah 3/26/2005 @ 9:42 am

  30. fine

    Comment by agas 4/20/2005 @ 11:01 am

  31. i need only two thing a gf and a gmail account….

    Comment by mind freak 5/11/2005 @ 1:25 am

  32. qwe

    Comment by sfgs 5/11/2005 @ 11:04 am

  33. hello,
    Kindly send me the invitation to jion Gmail to make an account on Gmail.
    Thanks
    Naeem

    Comment by Naeem 5/28/2005 @ 4:09 am

  34. please send me an invitation to make a gmail account.

    Comment by rupesh 5/28/2005 @ 4:18 am

  35. pls make me a gmail account pls

    Comment by bryan 6/1/2005 @ 3:41 am

  36. hello

    i want a GMAIL account plzzzzzz mail me

    Comment by xerox 6/1/2005 @ 5:17 am

  37. plzz send me invitation to join gmail. thanks alot.

    Comment by Nooki3 6/15/2005 @ 4:38 pm

  38. hi i wann to make an g-mail account plz send me the procedure to make an account oks thnx

    Comment by monark 7/20/2005 @ 1:07 am

  39. if any one require any invitation of gmail plzz contact me i have 100 ivitations.

    Comment by Muhammad Fahad Jabbar 9/6/2005 @ 2:09 pm

  40. give me an ivitaton to gmail plzzzzzz

    Comment by eran 3/28/2006 @ 3:31 pm

  41. please invite for creating a Gmail account?

    Comment by jincy 9/9/2006 @ 8:40 am

  42. I am looking for a invitation to create a Gmail account. Could anybbody invite me for a Gmail caccount.

    Thanks
    -Sagar

    Comment by Sagar 11/14/2006 @ 12:58 am

  43. I am looking for a Gmail account. Please invite me for a Gmail accoumt. may1_sagar@yahoo.com

    Comment by Sagar 11/14/2006 @ 1:01 am

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