The Ryndex

So I got my gmail address th’other day, thanks to the aforementioned kind benefactor. You all know him — he’s pure light and energy embodified, like Santa crossed with the genie of the lamp.

Anyway, <seinfeld>what’s the deal with Gmail? What sort of recently publicked multi-internet corp names their beta web mail service after an interjection derived from a shortened blaspheme? “Gee, man, I’ve got mail!” What’s up with that?</seinfeld> Here’s what’s up with Gmail:

* free
* 1 gigabyte of email storage (that’s 1,000 megabytes),
* promised IMAP or POP3 access (currently unavailable),
* smooth web interface,
* spell checking,
* strong email search tools,
* interesting email organization tools, and<
* cachet.

Let me elaborate on the last three points — with 1 gig of mail storage, you will seldom need to “clean out your inbox”. At work, I get a paltry dozens of megabytes of email space, so I need to periodically copy them into local folders, organized by subject. When a folder gets enormous, it slows down my email client significantly. When I’m looking for a filed email, I typically can’t remember where it is, so I search the whole tree.

Gmail loses this hierarchy and organizes everything either into Inbox or All Mail. New messages are in the Inbox, and they stay there until you archive them, at which point they are dumped into the big, homogenous All Mail. You can imagine that one day, you’ll have tens of thousands in this big pool.

Your old way of sorting your email into folders (usually representations of files on the hard disk) is artificial, inaccurate and time-consuming. When I search for an email, I generally scan the whole tree of folders anyway. Google has brought their expertise in search to help you find a specific mail in the huge pool of All Mail.

In addition, Gmail provides a feature that avoids the need to search: Conversations. Gmail automatically creates a context of old emails related to the email currently being read — a sort of advanced thread. It’s extremely simple to find and click related emails along the conversation you’re currently reading — so only the most recent email in your Conversation needs to be in the Inbox.

“But,” you cry, “Life without folders?! How unbearable!” Oh naive child, afraid of change, hark unto my words. What do you need folders for anyway?

If you want to have a list of important emails, you can “star” your email. This is similar to a flagged email in conventional browsers.

If you need more control over which emails are grouped together (past the context of the Conversation), you can assign a label to your email. You can assign multiple labels to a single email — beyond the grouping functionality of a single folder for one email. And deleting a label does not delete the associated messages.

Filtering works much like you would expect, although you assign stars or labels (or move your message directly into the trash) instead of moving into a folder.

Finally, the cachet. Gmail is a beta service not generally available to the public. You need an invitation. They aren’t in short supply like they were back in June, but you still need to know someone in order to get it.

I’m willing to be your Santa, so let me know if you’re looking.