The Gmail Fad

By Cyrris

Since people first realised Google’s Gmail proposal wasn’t an April Fools joke, it has been (until only recently) the talk of the town, at least for those more aquainted with the internet. The 1 GB limit was very impressive when first announced, and I was eager to get myself one as I wanted another account which wouldn’t be spam-ridden, for day to day interaction with my real life friends (My Hotmail account being what I use for anything that risks being spammed). The trick is, as Gmail is in beta, you can’t just sign up. Instead, Gmail sporadically lets it’s current users invite others to join up. Such was the fad that Gmail invites even started to be sold online.

Thanks to JohnDoe I eventually got my hands on one, and have subsequently been allowed to hand out a few Gmail invites. I currently have 5 left to give, so if anyone is interested, drop me a line, and remember - I need your e-mail to actually send you the invite. Remember that if you ask me over ICQ or something.

That said, my experience with Gmail is a mix of pleasant surprises and also irritation. While the service comes with some very good interface ideas, it lacks some basic e-mail functions. For instance, you can’t go into your contact list, select all or most of them, and have them automatically added to your “To:” field when sending a message. No, you need to manually enter each one when doing a mass e-mail. For me, this was only a problem once - when mailing all my friends who I wanted to know my change of e-mail address. Still, I hope this feature is on the to-do list, and we do need to remember it’s still just a beta. But overall it is very promising.