Thứ Năm, 2 tháng 6, 2016

Gmail was born 10 years ago as a joke

If you want to select a date to mark an important milestone, hardly anyone will surely grab the April Fools' Day. However, on the day that a full decade ago, Gmail launched.

Information Google is offering free e-mail service has leaked a day earlier. John Markoff Journalist of the New York Times said the upcoming products. But what makes people skeptical is the mailbox with a capacity of 1 GB - 500 times greater than what Microsoft Hotmail provides that time. This sounds hard to believe as if Apple introduced the iPhone with hundreds of gigabytes of memory so.





1/4 is not a random choice. Google has a tradition of teasing users on April Fools' Day in 2000. In 2004, Google also announced that it is building a research center on the moon. They guess (and later was true) that announced Gmail at the same time will create disbelief.

"Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, was the most exciting. It was exciting to launch something crazy right on 1/4 and then people realize it does exist in 2/4" Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail, said. "Press contact overwhelmed with questions: We need to know what you're playing, or this is the truth".

Gmail is not only real, it was really revolutionary.

Service is Google's first foray since online search tool launched in 1998, quickly squashed Gmail Hotmail and Yahoo - 2 webmail cult time. Webmail has large storage capacity, simple interface but lively, support quick lookups and other improved features.

At Google, Gmail was originally seen as a big gamble and uncertainties. This service has been developed for nearly three years before the official announcement.

Paul Buchheit, joined Google in 1999 and is the 23rd of its employees, started building Gmail, codenamed Caribou, from March 8/2001. Before that, he wrote an e-mail program in 1996.


Buchheit first thing to do is create search engines for e-mail service and he just one day to complete. After many improvements, Gmail has features better than any lookup services other e-mail. But if only the amount equal to Hotmail, it will not need a powerful search engine. What users need the ability to search for super Vietnam as they only have only a few megabytes of free storage, and constantly being asked to delete e-mail for full support.

Search is for high-volume services, for those wishing to keep all e-mail instead of having to frequently delete messages. Therefore, Google decided to "free" users 1 GB.

In the early years, one of the reasons for the success of Google is focused on search engine, while Yahoo, Excite, Lycos ... toward building "portal", extending from the weather, can Sports for the next game. So knowing about the project Gmail, many people think this is a bad idea in terms of both products and strategies. "They worry because e-mail is nothing related to the search engine. For others fear that companies like Microsoft will seek to destroy us," Buchheit said.

Fortunately, among the skeptics no two Google founders. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, always expressed support the project. Buchheit do alone for about two months before the engineer Sanjeev Singh further - with whom he founded FriendFeed social network after leaving Google in 2006 (Facebook acquired FriendFeed is 2009). By the time of launch, the development team also only Gmail more than 10 people.

May 8/2003, after 2 years of trying, rudimentary interface and Google Gmail still recruit Kevin Fox to task design services (after leaving Google, he joined FriendFeed with Buchheit and Singh).

Fox said that Gmail to Google's style. His challenge is not really clear style because that is how much Google is not providing services. One of the products inspired Fox is Google News, but search and news sites are also Gmail is a web application.




Gmail regarded as an application rather than a Web site also provides the difference. Hotmail and Yahoo Mail was born from the mid 90s of last century, we have sluggish interface and is written in traditional HTML. All activities that users perform on it requires reloading the entire web page, forcing them to wait quite a long time to switch to a different task. With Gmail, Buchheit overcome limitations of traditional HTML combinations using AJAX technology, which helps agility mailbox as a software as a website instead. Today, web applications are built like that, but when this technique the Gmail option, it was not yet clear if it works or not because it does not browsing as well.

Gmail uses AJAX as much, it becomes more subtle. One of the top features of the e-mail is no longer discrete and separately classified in the order of time. Instead, the incoming and outgoing mail is presented in the same stream to form a conversation throughout.

Some of Google's Gmail service would like to pay, but others want Buchheit and services reach as many users as possible. Free synonymous with flashing banner ads, but Google does not want to hang the banner. They choose to display small text ads using the keyword appears in your e-mail address of the user.

The other services also scan e-mail messages for viruses, spam. But scan message content for advertising purposes, such as Gmail is something new and somewhat frightening. Imagine how you will feel when exchanging e-mail on vacation at the beach then you see the mailbox display ads on hotels around it ... The controversy about the security of this information has not yet come to an end, even Google also been sued several times





By early 2004, most Google employees use Gmail to access e-mail systems internally. The whole development team worked very hard to get ready for the day of the quarter as planned because Gmail is not really ready. Google does not have strong enough servers to provide storage and e-mail service for millions of stability.

Finally, Gmail running on a Pentium III 300 old computers but enough for some people get round the first trial invitation. After Gmail is confirmed no joke, every second invitation to become "hot" that many people hunt. Google must deploy limited because they can not provide enough space, but it makes people want to own the mailbox. "Google has done is hailed one of the most important steps in the history of technology in marketing. In fact, everything happens in a way not intended," Georges Harik, who is responsible for most the new Google products as Gmail is in its infancy, said.

Sign up for Gmail invitations are auctioned up to $ 150 on eBay. Some sites appear to mediate for people who want to sell and buy the invitation. Those early Gmail account owner feels like taking a majority of the clubs that are not allowed in.


Gmail also the products tested (beta) longest. Google Gmail maintains registration through invitation until the date 14/2/2007 and also to 7/2009, the new service "breaks out" beta. The last time the US Internet service company to share in the number of users was in 2012 when 425 million users Gmail.


See more  :   How to log in and switch between multiple Gmail accounts


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