gmail Archive

Google launched their new Gmail Priority Inbox today. The service helps push the important emails to the top. So I wondered, what if Gmail Priority Inbox worked like the new Digg version 4 currently works?

reMail founder Gabor Cselle has just announced on the reMail blog that the service has been acquired by Google. Cselle notes that he will be re-joining the Google Gmail team as a product manager. I say re-joining because Cselle worked as an engineering intern on the Gmail product back in 2004. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

If you aren’t familiar with the service, reMail is an email search for the iPhone. reMail was part of the winter 2009 Y Combinator class.

Cselle notes that the reMail iPhone application has been removed from the iPhone App Store and will no longer be available for purchase. He notes, “You might be wondering what will happen with reMail’s product. Google and reMail have decided to discontinue reMail’s iPhone application, and we have removed it from the App Store. reMail is an application on your phone. If you already have reMail, it will continue to work. We’ll even provide support for you until the end of March, and we’ve enabled all paid reMail features for you.”

With all of the Gmail Buzz talk as of late and with their team apparently having to work overnight for a few days (the horror!), more product managers will be welcomed to the team.

Update: In the comments, Paul Short makes a smart prediction, “Ah ha! I’ll bet you one cupcake and a subway ticket that reMail ends up as an app on one of those Google phones! (as if it’s not obvious already…).”

Over the past few weeks I’ve been keeping track of the different ways each Google service handles login procedures. I would have thought that once I am “cookied” by a Google service that all services would authenticate my session in the same manner — this is not the case. Below are some of the Google services and what happens when I attempt to load the service assuming that I am already cookied.

• Gmail – takes me right into my mailbox with no login screen
• Google Checkout – forces me to enter my password each time but displays my username
• Feedburner – takes me directly into the my main list of managed feeds
• Google AdSense – displays a login page but the login box is missing and a “waiting” note and then I am taken directly into my account
• Google AdWords – takes me directly to my management screen
• Google Webmaster – displays a similar screen to Google AdSense but I am forced to click the login button but am never prompted for a password
• iGoogle – takes me directly to my customized home page
• YouTube - clicking upload takes me directly to the upload screen
• Google Reader – takes me directly to my RSS feeds
• Orkut - takes me directly to my account management page
• Google Groups – takes me to my groups management page
• Google Docs – takes me directly to my documents management page
• Google Calendar – takes me directly to my calendar
• Blogger – forces me to login using my Google account information

At first I was thinking that it’s great that Google forces me to enter my password when I want to process orders for my startup in Google Checkout. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t Google AdSense follow the same authentication pattern? What about Google Docs and Calendar – documents in both of those services could be just as sensitive as financial information in Google Checkout/AdSense or AdWords.
Continue reading “Why Doesn’t Google Consolidate Login Procedures?” »

We are receiving reports that Google’s mail service, Gmail, is down. Our tests from the CenterNetworks International Headquarters shows that it is unreachable. The time of our tests was 3:54pm Eastern Time. We will continue to update this post with additional announcements as they become available. Google’s Apps Status Dashboard shows an outage for Gmail although they state it’s for a “small subset of users”.

I use Yahoo Mail for the majority of my email although today I decided to send emails about apartments using my Gmail account. I guess I will be homeless if Google doesn’t get it working soon! :-P

Update: 5:00 PM Eastern – Google has provided an update on their blog about the service outage. They say that the team is working on the issue but there are no details on the cause or expected recovery time.

The following message is displayed on some loads:

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As always, please report in if Gmail is down where you are.

While you wait for Gmail to return to service, check out all the ways Google tracks you online.

One of the companies I met this past week was OtherInbox. OtherInbox is a mail management tool whereby it allows you to give out anything@domain.com and it automatically routes it to a newly-created mailbox. This allows you to give out macys@ for Macy’s, contest1@ for a contest and so on. It is one of the most useful tools I’ve seen in recent months. Check out reviews on CNET, Download Squad, Mashable and ReadWriteWeb.

Here’s my interview with Josh Baer, OtherInbox founder. If you’d like an invite, go to: http://beta.otherinbox.com/signup/centernetworks

Corsin tipped me off this morning to a story running in some of the German newspapers today about Google possibly yanking Gmail access from Germany due to some local law issues around a new law designed to protect against terrorists.

Philip at Google Blogoscoped describes the issue well:

According to this law, email services here will be forced to maintain personally identifiable records attached to email accounts. What exactly this might mean for Google I don’t know, but perhaps it would result in Gmail having to start requiring full addresses (and perhaps even having to verify an address by sending a snail mail to the user).

David at WebProNews notes that Google may just want to pack their bags, and take the ICE train east instead:

Google faces the prospect of having Germany challenge them to pull Gmail out of the country. How successfully that gambit will be depends on how much Google values its prospects in Germany. If they feel success China or Korea is within reach, Google could opt to focus on those markets and write off Germany as a loss.

Last week it was the Flickr censorship issue, now it's Google. Germany has tight laws and this may hinder companies from even wanting to do business there. But how hard is it to "appear" like you are from outside if you want to use a service bad enough.

And I believe that over the next few years, tougher data laws will come to most countries including the U.S.

Update: My friend Till sent over the following (he is a German citizen):

Since it's been mentioned here and since I think it probably hasn't been stated enough but Germany has no laws that require Flickr to censor Germans.

That is because Flickr is considered a hosting service in Germany, and not a forum. If Flickr was considered a forum different rules apply. For example the owner of a forum can be held responsible for its content even without prior notification.

But even for that there are regulations in the making which limit possible law suits here – the German law just has to fully understand "Internet mentality" before those are incorporate.

The regulations Google/Google Mail face are related to service providers who provide their services to more than 1,000  contracting parties. Note "contracting parties" – not necessarily email accounts.

This implies that operators of German email servers have the obligation to maintain a surveilance mechanism on the server in order to comply with the Telecommunication Surveillance Act, TKÜV, passed on 22nd January, 2002. Service providers have to implement this surveilance mechanism at their own cost.

TechCrunch is reporting that Yahoo will announce in the coming days that they have removed all caps on storage within Yahoo Mail. Currently Gmail caps storage at 2.8 gig.  Mike notes, "I spoke with Yahoo’s Vice President of Mail, John Kremer, this afternoon about the announcement. He says the new storage limits (or rather lack of a limit) affect all Yahoo mail users, not just users of the new beta product.

"Users are subject to Yahoo’s abuse policies, which requires users to follow “normal email practices” and not engage in activities like using Yahoo mail for basic online storage (a number of services have popped up to help people use Gmail for this purpose)."

So basically they are saying, "You can store as much mail as you want, but you can't store files." So for example, each morning I have my server email me a backup file (about 10mb), can I store 500 of these? 1000 of these? Or do these count as "online storage" ?

The Yahoo blog is clear; it is for "email message storage" — so I guess my backup files should be fine. Don't expect to use it as a FTP site for your Lindsay Lohan pics or weemee icons.

Also, as we have learned so many times with internet access, is unlimited really unlimited? I love Yahoo Mail, have used it since day 1 and really enjoy using it over Gmail. I look forward to the storage cap removal.

(now place your bets on how long until Gmail counters. I give it 2.5 days)