Gmail/Introduction

Origin of Gmail
On March 31, 2004 Google said they would release a free e-mail account with 1,000 Megabytes (ca. 1GB) for every user. Many thought it was an April Fool's joke, but it wasn't. It was an innovative addition to the rather stagnant area of free web-mail services.

On Gmail's 1st birthday, Google gave every Gmail user 2GBs of space, which was nearly unheard of at the time. The login page has a ticker showing the amount of free storage space currently offered (ca. 15GB as of 2021).

Originally, the invitations were sent out to a relatively small number of 'elite' internet users, and some journalists. The journalists could review the email service, and in the process create quite a buzz about the service. These users were given different numbers of invites by which they could give a select number of others access. New users also got invites and so the user-base grew by word of mouth.

After a few years in "beta", Google has opened the service up to everyone to use.

Features
The backbone of Gmail is a powerful Google search engine that quickly finds any message an account owner has ever sent or received. That means there's no need to file messages in order to find them again. For this reason, the Gmail interface implemented no folder structure. It did, however, introduce labels. Instead of placing an email in a single folder, conversations could be categorized with multiple labels. Another innovation amongst web-mail interfaces was the concept of conversations by which emails are grouped together with their replies.

Other features:
 * Utilizes JavaScript and cookies heavily.
 * Powerful spam filtering
 * Email Content-sensitive advertising
 * Interface available in multiple languages.
 * Automatic forwarding, POP3 and (limited) IMAP access
 * Many fully supported browsers

Obtaining an account
Simply go to the Gmail website and click "Create an Account".