what happens after gmail goes gold?

[fantasi]

what happens? Do we lose that email. i mean reason for asking is because i want to use gmail as my main email. I dont want it to emm disappear after. anyone has any insights to this?

 

[Lee]

Well..... I doubt you will lose it, if you have a question e-mail them from the support section.

 

[SPeedY_B]

Would be rather harsh of them to take away all the accounts they've given out so far. I doubt that they would do it, after all, you could just re-register the same name again anyway.

Like Lee says, you can contact them if you have a query: http://gmail.google.com/support/bin/request.py?contact=1

 

[Kush]

yes plz do and tell us what they say, i mean that is why after all they controled how many people get into the gmail system, otherwise half the planet would have gmail

 

[rotjong]

1. I can't see them simply resetting the system and making existing members lose their email and their existing usernames.

2. By limiting the amount of users able to use gmail they could control the load on their system and can keep it under control while they work out any kinks.

3. The limited membership and giving out of invitations is one of the better PR moves I've seen. People want a gmail account. Why? Well, because it's not official yet. It's been a great little hook. Not everyone has one yet many people want one.

So, in short, I see their being no change at all once it goes gold except that it's possible the system might get a little slower once a boat load of users are all accessing it at the same time.

rotjong

 

[Jewelzz]

. Not everyone has one yet many people want one.
rotjong

I can't get rid of my invites

 

[rotjong]

I can't get rid of my invites

Valid point

It seems they are giving members endless amounts of invites and I see this as them ramping up the total users to see how it performs before going gold. A few days ago I had major issues logging into gmail.

Now it's a matter of who doesn't have a gmail account, who wants one, who really knows what gmail is, and quite simply who knows someone who will invite them. Generally speaking none of my friends who don't read sites like OSNN, MSFN, etc, really know all that much about gmail nor do they care. What you are left with is a limited population of people and I think with all the invites being passed around forums like these that we've hit the saturation point but there's still a larger population outside the forums.

rotjong

 

[Lee]

What bothers me about the amount of space they declare you never need to delete e-mails coz of space lacking. Well I can just see them doing what microsoft did to me and millions of others, just empty our inboxes (they said by accident) and remove all our important files.
Yeah and the feds could be snooping into out mail toooooo!

 

[rotjong]

What bothers me about the amount of space they declare you never need to delete e-mails coz of space lacking. Well I can just see them doing what microsoft did to me and millions of others, just empty our inboxes (they said by accident) and remove all our important files.

Well, yes, 1 gig of space and never deleting sounds nice except for the "what if..." factor. We all have crashes at times. I backup data on a regular basis but I make backups of my email on a daily basis. I had a rather massive crash about 2 years ago and lost everything including a decade worth of email. Of course... if I had done full backups I wouldn't have lost the mail but I never thought to worry about that. Nonetheless, my point is that regardless of what Google says... I won't just leave a gig of email sitting on their server with no backup.

rotjong

 

[Son Goku]

One thing, that I think should come into place (tried it recently, though no I haven't moved my mail over)...is to allow for IMAP or POP3 servers. There are times one could use the extra space, but a web interface isn't always the most useful thing. Can be when one's on the road, but well at home...

I tried setting things up for IMAP in OE (though I hadn't tried POP3) and it was a no go. There might be something I'm missing here (won't rule that out), but not sure it's setup to allow one to access the account in this manner yet.

 

[rotjong]

One thing, that I think should come into place (tried it recently, though no I haven't moved my mail over)...is to allow for IMAP or POP3 servers.

I would love this but I don't see Google doing it without charging like most other email providers do. I'm hoping that once gmail goes gold that MailWasher Pro and MailForward will provide support for it and allow viewing and forwarding gmail to one of my POP3 accounts.

rotjong

PS: One thing about being able to access your email this way from gmail is that it essentially kills the entire purpose of gmail. Gmail is being marketed in two ways: the 1 gig of space and how it organizes your mail. If you access it via POP3 or IMAP then the whole gmail organizational method gets thrown out the window as does the search capabilities that they talk about. I think they should still add/allow POP3/IMAP support but it would definitely impact the whole marketing of gmail.

 

[Glaanieboy]

PS: One thing about being able to access your email this way from gmail is that it essentially kills the entire purpose of gmail. Gmail is being marketed in two ways: the 1 gig of space and how it organizes your mail. If you access it via POP3 or IMAP then the whole gmail organizational method gets thrown out the window as does the search capabilities that they talk about. I think they should still add/allow POP3/IMAP support but it would definitely impact the whole marketing of gmail.

What about backups? You copy the mails over to your home computer, but you don't delete the mail on the GMail server. If something happens to either your computer or Gmail, you always have a copy.
The labelling system can easily be adapted into most mailclients, as most mailclients have the ability to use a set of rules based on the email headers, subject line and/or body. GMail could easily add a header to the email containing something like X-GMail-Label: <label name>, so you can create rules/folders depening on the label. I agree, not the cleanest way, but still a way.

 

[rotjong]

What about backups? You copy the mails over to your home computer, but you don't delete the mail on the GMail server. If something happens to either your computer or Gmail, you always have a copy.

You present a very valid point and one I would make use of... to a point. Yes, I am a privacy conscious person to the point of some calling me paranoid. I'm not saying Google will read my email or any of that huge conspiracy stuff but I do always have concern about someone who knows my email hacking it. It does happen time to time [though never to me] and the last thing I want is the hypothetical 1 gig of my personal email sitting there for someone to read. That could hypothetically lead to a very embarrassing situation [for some people but not me ] if not worse.

I will most definitely find a way of downloading my gmail mail but I have yet to really find any program I like that performs this. I tried POP Goes the Gmail and can't say it worked all that nicely for me. Any suggestions?

So, yes, I have to agree with you on what you've said but I, myself, could never really make use of it in that way. I do, however, always make backups of email now and save them in case of a disaster.

The labelling system can easily be adapted into most mailclients, as most mailclients have the ability to use a set of rules based on the email headers, subject line and/or body. GMail could easily add a header to the email containing something like X-GMail-Label: <label name>, so you can create rules/folders depening on the label. I agree, not the cleanest way, but still a way.

Again you make a great point and time will tell how this works out I wouldn't mind seeing QUALCOMM adding this to Eudora.

rotjong

 

[Son Goku]

What about backups? You copy the mails over to your home computer, but you don't delete the mail on the GMail server. If something happens to either your computer or Gmail, you always have a copy.
The labelling system can easily be adapted into most mailclients, as most mailclients have the ability to use a set of rules based on the email headers, subject line and/or body. GMail could easily add a header to the email containing something like X-GMail-Label: <label name>, so you can create rules/folders depening on the label. I agree, not the cleanest way, but still a way.

This is exactly what IMAP does with it set to default. Unlike POP3 (I actually use IMAP as well with older software versions I have more then 1 email and until more recently one could only have 1 POP3 acct setup but multipel IMAP in email progs) it leaves the messages on the server even after downloading...

There is one thing it can allow, sending/receiving very large attachments. There are times that people needed a driver file that was on my hard drive, gfx drivers in actuallity...and they couldn't download it. It was 5 MB then...but some of these files are 25 or 30 MB... One could just email this, rather then host it on private/non-advertized webspace and give them a link.

When I thought about this at first, that's what I thought about...if very large files need to be received... Some places (Comcast for instance) are beginning to look at things like video mail or what not, as well. Then there's the sending of some pics from one's vacation or whatever else, which could also result in large emails...

Oh, and come to think of it, last year in a class I was taking in mass media studies...we had to produce a news magazine (semester project). Course if everyone sent the very large articles (which we were required to produce, complete with lots of gfx and all) electronically...it prevents the editor having to type the stuff up (put it back into the computer) so it can then be color printed and receive a professional binding that the teacher expected. OK, yes the school did have some resources for this sorta thing... A paper print out of the document file only ended up giving some project partners more work to do (hence peeps were asked not to give printed copies)...

Course, if someone doesn't have a broadband connection, even with gmail...it wouldn't be reasonable to send files as such...