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91 Comments
- christoscamaro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+51The email point is interesting.
Back around 1999 I started paying for my Yahoo mail account. Mainly because when I changed ISPs, my email address would change too. I also like to archive my emails because it's fun to hop around and see what I was talking about years ago.
Something like ten bucks a year gave me 25MBs of space, and now I had a primary email address that would never change. I was quite happy with it.
Gmail came about, but I didn't care to switch. I have my primary email address already established through yahoo from ages ago. What happens next? Yahoo starts offering 1GB for email accounts. Then they delete all of my archived messages (anything older than 6-8 months or so) and now suddenly the 6-8 months of messages back I can see take up 160MB, instead of the MB or so they used to.
Yay for google giving people more email space. Boo for yahoo breaking their email system to compete. - ScottJG, on 10/12/2007, -3/+36Live probably would have not lauched without MS Feeling the Google Threat
- cybe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Wheren't we all using Alta Vista before Google?
- ChanKaiShi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22The most astonishing feature of Gmail for me is that they are offering free email forwarding for your account. None of the other big providers do, I don't think it's even possible if you'll be paying them monthly fees. To offer this for a free account knowning you are not going to derive any revenue for that user is bold statement from Google to other free email providersw "wannabees" (Yahoo, Hotmail) - "we are not afraid that people will switch from us so we are giving them ability to forward their emails to any external account, we are the best and we show it". So far I did not see neither Hotmail or Yahoo even come close to being as good as Gmail (even if it's still in beta).
- XxXoldsaltXxX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21And hotmail's automatic wiping of your account after 1 month of logging in isnt that fun either :(
- flyingcow, on 10/12/2007, -7/+23I remember when Gmail first came out on April 1st. I didn't believe it until about a week later.
- briansorders, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15"Hotmail wipes accounts to get them ready to be redistributed to others that want it. Google doesn't haveto do that becuase nobody wants them. Hence the almost non-existent market share."
oh yea, those hotmail accounts are in real high demand... LOL - Strangers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Having invites was a fantastic idea. It gave Gmail an exclusive air, made it much more desirable.
I don't agree with your oter points though, google has made the internet easier - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13the Altavista Video search is still one of the best for finding porn if one has no other route to go
- nixr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Because of Google companies like Microsoft have to try harder. That's a good thing.
- Shinta, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18Without Google the internet would not be worth using.
- arunforce, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13It would be like 1996. Yahoo!
Bad memories. - cyrusthevirus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I feel your pain. I've been with Yahoo! Mail since 1998. I had 6MB when everyone else got 4 and eventually 2MB. Finally, I decided I needed POP3 access (not free) and started paying $20/year for 25MB of space. No sooner did I do that, than GMail came out with massive email storage and Yahoo ran to catch up. Now we all have 2GB+, and Yahoo's POP3 access is still not free. Can't change my email address either, I've had it too long. Alas.....
- CaughtThinking, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Google is a necessary step in web evolution.
- Toupee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10"GoogleEarth. I use to use Microsoft's Terra server. WAY before Google did anything and it was/is powerful.
Picasa is overrated. "
The point he was trying to make is that Google made these tools available for FREE.
"Many startups, without ad sense, would still start up. They'd just need additional capital. "
And where would that come from?
"Google's Beta is simply more marketing genius. Excuse for bugs and free testing base."
Frankly, I don't care whether or not Google's products are bought and re-labled or still called Beta; they provide fantastic software - for free - that has changed the way we not only use the internet and computers in general, but think about it. - yuriw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8This article really shows how gmail and google have changed the internet. If it weren't for google, I probably wouldn't know what a search engine was. And without gmail, I'd still be using the crappy email my ISP provides.
- monergism, on 10/12/2007, -10/+16Marketing is great. Google did it with their massive 'invite' period. When I got my gmail account, my current email service gave me ~250mb and then if I desired, I could have had more. Interesting enough I didn't have any ads, pop3 access and email searching.
Google has done well but not without a lot of marketing and A LOT of advertising.
Onto the original post, and not the blog about the blog.
GoogleEarth. I use to use Microsoft's Terra server. WAY before Google did anything and it was/is powerful.
Picasa is overrated.
Many startups, without ad sense, would still start up. They'd just need additional capital.
Google's Beta is simply more marketing genius. Excuse for bugs and free testing base. - MasterChi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Ok, thank you all who have sent me Gmail invites........but please stop now. My goowy account is getting the digg effect and thats just sad when mail gets the digg effect :(
- rparle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Do you mean if Google disappeared now, or if Google never existed? The Internet would remain very nearly as useful if Google disappeared right now. There are other search engines that are equally effective, and most if not all of their other services are available elsewhere. But who knows if those improvements would have been made in the other search engines if Google hadn't ever existed? I imagine the state of the Web would be somewhat impoverished without Google's influence.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5AltaVista? No. Astalavista.box.sk? Yes. :P
- Jugalator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Google's Beta is simply more marketing genius. Excuse for bugs and free testing base."
Of course, this practice has caught on with both Microsoft and Yahoo! now, with similarly long "beta" periods as well, and Windows Live! is currently in "beta". They were among the first to realize this though. It's clever, because users wish to live on the bleeding edge, and many don't care much for bugs in order to do it.
"GoogleEarth. I use to use Microsoft's Terra server. WAY before Google did anything and it was/is powerful."
True, it was useful for some purposes, but a bit like comparing Altavista to Google. It served the same purpose, but was noticeably more limited. - Sartori, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Crikey, a comment like this on a tech site...
The world wide web is *not* the Internet! The Internet would be just as usable without Google as it is now. The WWW might well be less usable without Google, but who knows what cunning search algorithms might have appeared...
I must admit though, I do like Google - mostly for the very slim and quick loading search page. - neave, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Can we also have a list of points saying what the world would be like without Microsoft? Nah of course not, that wouldn't nearly be cool enough.
- slyyy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Without Google (and in particular, Gmail), maybe I'd be interested in the new Windows Live Mail. Maybe.
- vertigoblue, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4you guys need to forward for free with yahoopops into your gmail account and then use thunderbird to retrieve your mail from google...
- DarkSorrow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3AV is still around, i looked at a artcile about search engine, top search engine, and i see AV is in that list. i tihnk it was top 10 search engine, not sure
- DarkSorrow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6i extremely doubt that Window Live will happen if google is not around.
When google here, it changed many things. Open Source Community boomed. many people using a open source software, Firefox, Linux, etc. Im Suyre Google is behind this. If Google never around, it will be still MS empire. but now it weakened because Google and other things changes thing. And that really make poepl realized what are we doing, we should stand for ourself no matter what. - praecisio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Did Spymac not have a gb of free email storage first?
- DirtyCash, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4There were numerous Search engines before Google became popular.
Webcrawler, AltaVista, etc...
But Google did obviously help make email better in general - remiprev, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What's wrong in still having about:blank as homepage?
- escher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yes, Spymac was first, though mostly as a response to Google's plans.
- ChileanGoD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3^^ Give us your email account.. we'll send ya plenty of invitations.
- rockshandy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree with some people's view of other mail services like Yahoo. As soon as my friend gave me one of his invites to gmail (long before a hundred invites were possible), I recreated an account with the same name @gmail.com. I use my old yahoo account only sparingly or as a place to direct spam mail. I've even enjoyed the newer feature to email from other email addresses I own and now I don't have to use my college's email client which pales in comparison to gmail.
- monergism, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes and NO!
I was using Copernic which aggergated >10 search engines. Wonderful stuff back in the day. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I used AJ, back when they were cool, before they sold out.
When I could ask "What is the meaning of life?" and I'd get a responce like "To live long, prosper, and give large sums of money to Ask Jeeves."
Now, if you ask that, you'll get 50 ads for unrelated crap. - honavery, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I have to say gmail is probably the best thing they've rolled out. Google maps was pretty cool too, and I still find people using that API In interesting ways. Their search is great, but I was using Yahoo pretty successfully before that. I have mixed feelings on Picasa, but can't complain too much since it is free.
Gmail is a very feature full web app. It still amazes me some of the more advanced things you can do with it. It just totally blows everything else out of the water. At work we use exchange 2003 webmail, and it is actually pretty decent too. But I still prefer gmail. Gmail along with Meebo are the 2 best things on the web right now.
Oh and Digg. - MasterChi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Masterchi@goowy.com if you want to give me "tons" of gmail invites.
- coopa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I was using ixquick.com, which i still use now and then as it's a 'meta search'.
- Latka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2alltheweb.com used to kick major ass
- mindtrap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I remember when HotBot had the most relevant search results according to an article about 5 or so years ago.
- bradtwitty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2We would still have privacy.
- Alegis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Altavista, afterwards Copernic, afterwards google
and go.com before that I think. Go.com was hot for a while as well - yahoofrom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Next episode: What the world would be like without Microsoft.
- crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1think he/she requested a halt on the invites, getting email digg effect.
- cesclaveria, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I dont recall seeing Google ads...."
really??? - hass, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Sometimes I wonder why there are so many Google fanboys out there. This article does a great job to show why. Gmail, Picasa, Keyhole/Google Earth, Maps, and Desktop Search (, Google spreadsheets/word processor). If you don't use any of these products then at least they created much needed competition. Some of the things that came from this competition: Yahoo's new e-mail (with at least 1 gig, maybe more, of storage), MSN & Yahoo's new maps/ satelite imagery, the various desktop search apps out there, Office Live (or whatever it's called) just to name a few.
- JustMatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Which would also explain modern evolution vs intelligent design, if only we were living in the Matrix.
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was using infoseek.
- mindtrap, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2All great turning points in internet history.
I remember telling my boss 10 years ago that a client may be running Linux. He said there was no way a company would run a free operating system. -
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