Gmail

Google + Email = Gmail

The latest company to get into the game of web-based email service has caused a real stir on the Internet and especially among its competition. Google has launched a beta version of its free email service called Gmail (http://gmail.google.com) . So whats the big deal? How about 1 GB of email storage – that’s 1,000 megabytes!! Compare that to the 2-4 MB of Yahoo Mail or Microsoft Hotmail. Or even your Exchange account is probably around 50-100 MB. Why would you ever need 1,000 MB of email storage you might ask? The thought is that you probably wouldn’t ever have to delete any of your email – you’d have enough space to store it all. Then you can use the power of Google’s search tools to run searches through all of your email to find your messages, no matter how old they may be.

In response to this unheard of amount of free email storage, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail have announced storage space increases as well. Yahoo Mail has already upgraded to 100 MB and Hotmail has announced they will soon be bumping their free account limits up to 250 MB. Amazing what a little competition can do to a market.

Another handy aspect of Gmail is that it has a 10 MB size limit per email. And with 1 GB of free space, it’s almost like having a personal FTP site to store files and documents.

So are you ready to get a Gmail account? So is everyone else. Unfortunately it’s still in beta mode and not open to the public yet. However “Gmail invites” are becoming more common as people that already have a Gmail account are able to invite new users to come and setup accounts for themselves.

Check out these links to learn more about Gmail. And be sure to mail me at Jason13@gmail.com and let me know what you think of Tech Roundup!

Inbox screenshot - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/screen1.html

New “conversation mode” screenshot - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/screen2.html

FAQ - http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/about.html