Google Inside

I have heard a lot of conversations floating around both here on campus and around the blogsphere.

Since all these new web-based mail services are available, what makes Gmail so much better than the rest?

AJAX Navigation
Anyone else have a fear of refreshing the page? Sometimes I do. Okay, not really, but the AJAX features of Gmail are amazing to me. Google brought AJAX to the front line where Microsoft created the actual language almost 10 years ago (actually dated back to 1996 with Internet Explorer 3’s IFRAME). Gmail and Google Maps made this language very popular and then it was termed by Jesse Garrett in 2005.

AJAX: Asyncronous Javascript and XML. The AJAX interface for Gmail makes it easy to move around and not have to refresh the page everytime you want to go somewhere. That’s what I really hated about Hotmail and AOL. Well, AOL is a whole different story which we don’t have time for, but let’s focus on the pitfalls of Hotmail. It was very bland and flat. Too much advertising that was in your face and it wasn’t very effective as a friendly web-based e-mail client.

Gmail has revamped the normal interface and given it some spark.

Gmail Plus
Gmail plus is a feature that few people know about. After I learned about it, I started using it in almost every circumstance that I could. So what is Gmail plus? Gmail plus is the ability to add the plus to your account name and the mail will still be directed to you.

myusername+spamfilter@gmail.com for example will still be delivered to myusername@gmail.com. The benefit of this “filtering” is that you can create filters within Gmail to label e-mails coming in from a certain address and/or know whether a site is selling your e-mail address or not. I did it for my taxes, I do it for school work, I do it for any instance I can because it provides a cleaner Gmail account.

Growing Space
Gmail originally started out with just 1gb (1000mb) of space but quickly jumped up to 2gb and growing daily. I have used about 515mb of space in my Gmail account but it grows daily and so does my usage. This isn’t a factor that really keeps Gmail ahead of the game, but it is an important feature to have.

Contact List
I recently signed up for Last.fm and thought hey, I’ll put in my username and password and it will grab all my contacts that have Last.fm accounts already. I normally don’t do this because I rarely trust a site enough to provide them my Google Account information, but I do trust Last.fm — they’ve been around a while.

I haven’t seen this in other mail provides.

In short, Gmail is better and always will be. Hotmail, Yahoo!, and all the other mail provides have just slacked off and not come out with the creative features which would set them apart from the rest. They simply just … provide e-mail. Gmail does more than that which is why I use it.