How much longer before Google will offer a messenger program?

[BillGates]

I'm betting Google is going to make some sort of messaging program in the footsteps of AOL, MSN, and Yahoo... I wish they'd stay more simplified and offer a search engine and picture search, and maybe the newsgroups. If we want tons of content and extras, we'll go to one of the aforementioned sites!

 

[Abhi]

I like the idea of gmail...

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Abhi
I like the idea of gmail...

why? Spymac has been giveing away 1GB email accounts fr free for a long time and you dont have to deal with adds

and No i dont have a Mac but i have a spymac email addy cause its free and huge

i get free webhosting and FTP space also and a pc gallery

 

[spunkz]

at least they've kept the main homepage simple. yahoo went downhill after they clogged the whole page up w/news,sports,stocks,etc...

 

[slydecix]

What do you want them to do? Not look for new ways to make money?

 

[dolph]

*cough*

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Abhi
I like the idea of gmail...

why? Spymac has been giveing away 1GB email accounts fr free for a long time and you dont have to deal with adds

and No i dont have a Mac but i have a spymac email addy cause its free and huge

i get free webhosting and FTP space also and a pc gallery

Spymac really really sucks. Unreliable slow and buggy.

 

[kevinthenerd]

Originally posted by: Gnote

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: Abhi
I like the idea of gmail...

why? Spymac has been giveing away 1GB email accounts fr free for a long time and you dont have to deal with adds

and No i dont have a Mac but i have a spymac email addy cause its free and huge

i get free webhosting and FTP space also and a pc gallery

Spymac really really sucks. Unreliable slow and buggy.

I wonder how much longer it'll be around. I've used many free email services that were far outlasted by the main competitors: Hotmail and Yahoo. When you have a whole mess of contacts, it just isn't worth telling everyone your new email address when the service you were using goes Chaper 11.

 

[nageov3t]

I'll probably go with G-Mail. I've been using Hotmail since the mid-90's, but the spam is unbelievable. plus the annoying flashing adds and pop-ups.

with 1GB storage, I'd loose the only reason I have for keeping a POP account, which is archiving mail.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: loki8481
I'll probably go with G-Mail. I've been using Hotmail since the mid-90's, but the spam is unbelievable. plus the annoying flashing adds and pop-ups.

Odd...I saw a massive decline of spam in all of my Hotmail accounts in November. Almost none, actually. It was really weird. I still am not getting more than one or two spam mails per account per week, whereas I used to get 15 to 20 a day per account.

But I digress...I was thinking the same thing about Google getting into IM. It's a natural progression, and IM drives people like the old "portal" ideal was supposed to do back in the late 90's...except IM does it better. They already have major brand recognition and customer loyalty, so...

 

[LS20]

yahoo mail is extraordinarily good at spam filtering...and its superbly reliable...too bad i hate the free email stigma and moniker so i stick with my own personal domain

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Personally, I'm waiting for the gMaritalAid.

 

[Turkish]

why? Spymac has been giveing away 1GB email accounts fr free for a long time and you dont have to deal with adds

and No i dont have a Mac but i have a spymac email addy cause its free and huge

i get free webhosting and FTP space also and a pc gallery

Because spymac is crap. slow. unreliable. etc.

besides, it has no brandname recognition. if you give your spymac email to someone, they probably won't remember it. gmail, however, is easy to remember and has google behind it... even mymom has heard of gmail.

 

[nageov3t]

Slugbait -- I've had the same account since, like, '95. just try and imagine how many mailing lists it's ended up on by now. lol.

I only check the account about once a week. just to flush out the spam and come across the occasional random letter from someone I haven't talked to in years (or at least not since changing my e-mail account).

 

[Ness]

I think google is smarter than that. They wouldn't try to enter a market so big as the underdog with nothing new to offer.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Ness
I think google is smarter than that. They wouldn't try to enter a market so big as the underdog with nothing new to offer.

Microsoft does it all the time. For example, when they started Messenger, AIM and ICQ already had a major foothold in the IM world. Now MS has something like 120M unique users, and their servers are handling over 13M simultaneously online users at any given time throughout the day. They haven't surpassed AIM in America, but most countries in the Far East are almost exclusively using MSN Messenger.

Other examples: When MS started Word, just about everyone was using WordPerfect. When they started Excel, most people were using 1-2-3. There were other players too, but you get the gist...

Google has a strong reputation and major brand name recognition. They would just need to offer something a little different that no other IM client has, something cool the other companies didn't consider, whatever...