When Google launched a test version of Gmail on April 1 last year, the thousand or so accounts that were granted and the handful of invitations to sign others up to the free e-mail service felt like favours handed out by a benevolent deity.
It’s not hard to see why. Gmail had not just moved the free e-mail market up a gear, Google had fired its rocket boosters and left the competition eating its dust.
A year ago, two market leaders in free e-mail, MSN and Yahoo!, gave their users 2MB and 4MB of storage space respectively. Gmail’s free storage package was 250 to 500 times bigger at one gigabyte.
With Gmail celebrating its first birthday on Saturday, Google is tight-lipped about growing speculation that it is about to open Gmail up to the masses with a public release.
In the past 12 months, Gmail’s competitors have joined the e-mail arms race, both upping their storage to 250MB; Yahoo! revealed last week that from next month its accounts will match Gmail’s gigabyte.
The Gmail launch was not without controversy, though. A clutch of privacy groups complained to Google that Gmail raised ”significant and troubling questions” about how users’ data will be used and stored.
Such worries did not stop Gmail accounts becoming a cult item in early 2004, as invitations changed hands for $100 or more on auction site eBay.
And those who embraced Gmail have found innovative ways of using it to organise their lives and communicate with others, setting up dozens of tools and sites to spread their wisdom around the net. — Guardian Unlimited Â