19962013
The real problem with GMail
I'm getting the feeling that Google is going to get tasted with the introduction of "GMail". The first general portals learned this lesson very painfully. Just launching something "bigger" than the last guy and putting a lot of stock in the brand and the fact that "we have lots of users" isn't going to be enough to get people to signup and use the application.
Dave Winer: "I heard about Google mail... A free gigabyte and integration with the search engine.
That's cool. Raises the bar for Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc."
[via Scripting News]
Raising
the bar for Microsoft isn't going to be enough. Building a better
application than Microsoft isn't going to be enough. Influencing
consumer behavior is the only thing that is going to work. Will Google
score a few million users that aren't happy with the
webmail services that Y/A/M offer? Sure thing - but only
until Y/A/M upgrade their current offerings. Is Google going
to get anyone to migrate from Outlook to Gmail? Probably not. Why would
any email user give up an incredibly rich client and unlimited storage
to let Google drop Adwords into their Inbox? Surely they don't think
that people will be seriously enticed by an "@google.com" email
address.
But here's the real problem with GMail.
GMail is an email client. Google is a server company.
Hotmail is an email client. Microsoft is a client company.
Hotmail is an email client. Microsoft is a client company.
Email is a client business.
Who writes more compelling client applications Microsoft and Apple or Google?
See this post as it first appeared on Blogware.
4 comments
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(name not saved), April 3, 2004
Did you mean toasted or tested? I agree that Google is going to be tested -- not sure about toasted.
(name not saved), April 3, 2004
"Tasted" as in "abrupt comeuppance"...
Its a bit of slang that I picked up somewhere - probably a Manitoba high school - that is apparently not in widespread use! ;)
(name not saved), April 4, 2004
I am probably guilty of "tasted". I use it fairly regularly in a "beat the crap out of...." way.
(name not saved), April 19, 2004
Corporate IT pros have a love-hate relationship with Outlook. They grew dependent when laptops made being offline an issue. It got worse when third parties started to create useful plug-ins that leveraged other enterprise investments. But they universally despise the steep MS license, support costs, virus management costs, and complete decentralization of vital company information that comes with a client. Webmail resolves these issues.
So look for GMail to come as an appliance app, perhaps bundled with Google Search, language tools, blogging, and an address-book-fed Orkut.