Who wants to GMail today?. Review on Gmail.com

''When a proper noun becomes a common verb, that's brand equity!''

Great words indeed! I don't know who said this but these words are golden.

When you want to send something fast, you FedEx it.

When a city gets rapidly urbanised, then it's Bangalored.

And... after you made a successful net search, you Googled your way to the page, didn't you?

How true? I never used any search engine other than google in the past 3 years. The only search I've used apart from Google is the search for my files in my hard disk and behold: Google is going to enter that domain too, very soon.

Well, coming back to the topic: In the next few paragraphs I'm going to go gaga over the GMail features. Read and you possibly have a surprise waiting for you at the end!

User Interface

GMail beats Microsoft and every other email service provider hands down when it comes to UI. Still in its nascent stages (read Beta version), GMail is a lot evolved vis-a-vis other ESPs and provides enough keyboard shortcuts for faster access to emails. For ex. you just hit 'C' and start composing a mail!

Celerity

'Lightning fast' would be a very humble adjective to describe the swiftness of GMail. Well, the initial loading of the webpage takes sometime and after that it feels as if you're working on your emails stored in the hard disk.

Organizing your mails

Conversation

If you've used Outlook, you'd know one of the views provided by Outlook is ''Group by Conversation''. Google's default way of showing emails is by Conversational topic. It really helps. You just get to see one link for a big conversation you had with, let's say, your friend and upon clicking the link the latest email is opened for you. You can open any of the previous emails just to see what you replied earlier or what your friend told. You must use it to fully appreciate it!

Labels

There are no folders in GMail. All mails are stored in only one folder but you attach tags to your mails to group them. For example, a particular chain of mails might be with your Friend talking about the recent picnic you went. Now, you tag this mail with 2 keywords, say ''Friends'' and ''Munnar '03''. This mail will be listed under both these labels so finding mails is all the more easier!

Search

A search button is provided at the top for you to search all your emails by giving keywords. Operators like + and - you use with Google, works here too. No other web based email services I use provide this search feature.

Overall

GMail is an excellent email service that has really evolved a lot! Its lightning fast, provides 1GB of email space, and comes with a cool UI. I've been using GMail for more than 2 months now and I can't really think of any cons with the service. The only constraint is it's not available for you to use it! You need someone to invite you.

Surprise

And... the surprise package! Because I'm so generous and I love fellow MSians very much, I'm going to give to few of you the 6 invitations I have with GMail. But, ...er... well, it depends on how good your comments are for this review!!!