Gmail is Up April 22, 2004 3:06 AM Subscribe
Not worth starting a new MeFi thread for, but gmail is up and running. Previous discussion here. Active Blogger users are being asked to join. I did, and have sent and received my first emails. The service is pretty slick, and has a nice interface, as far as I've discovered so far.
It's been in an invite-only beta for some time now. Also, I'm not entirely sure using meta threads for follow-ups that don't warrant an entire MeFi thread is a good idea.
posted by fvw at 3:12 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by fvw at 3:12 AM on April 22, 2004
Also, I'm not entirely sure using meta threads for follow-ups that don't warrant an entire MeFi thread is a good idea.
Yeah, I saw that admonition coming (three minutes is an impressive response time for the scolding in any case), but it did seem related to a post that had been extensively discussed but had fallen off the front page, and Matt seemed to have a great deal of interest in it. I didn't see any follow-up on it.
As for it being in invite-only beta for a while already, mea culpa -- I knew ev and other insiders had been using it, but I hadn't seen it offered to the public yet. If it was a widely-circulated beta test, my apologies.
posted by quarantine at 3:20 AM on April 22, 2004
Yeah, I saw that admonition coming (three minutes is an impressive response time for the scolding in any case), but it did seem related to a post that had been extensively discussed but had fallen off the front page, and Matt seemed to have a great deal of interest in it. I didn't see any follow-up on it.
As for it being in invite-only beta for a while already, mea culpa -- I knew ev and other insiders had been using it, but I hadn't seen it offered to the public yet. If it was a widely-circulated beta test, my apologies.
posted by quarantine at 3:20 AM on April 22, 2004
the blogger invites seem to be very new as mine wasn't there on sign up last week, so i think it's worth noting that they've gone to an even larger beta test. it probaby signals that it will be fully public soon.
it is a rather spiffy service; i love how messages are grouped with their respective replies and displayed as a conversation, sort of newsgroup style.
but i don't really need to use a web based email service, and if i wanted to i have one on my domain, so i'm not going to be using gmail much or at all. also google privacy issues have become sort of alarming recently...
posted by t r a c y at 4:10 AM on April 22, 2004
it is a rather spiffy service; i love how messages are grouped with their respective replies and displayed as a conversation, sort of newsgroup style.
but i don't really need to use a web based email service, and if i wanted to i have one on my domain, so i'm not going to be using gmail much or at all. also google privacy issues have become sort of alarming recently...
posted by t r a c y at 4:10 AM on April 22, 2004
Apparently, not using blogger for a few years deems you inelligible for the beta testing...
posted by adampsyche at 4:18 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by adampsyche at 4:18 AM on April 22, 2004
Is it true that the minimum number of characters for 'username' is 6?
That would suck (for me).
posted by Gyan at 4:37 AM on April 22, 2004
That would suck (for me).
posted by Gyan at 4:37 AM on April 22, 2004
yup Gyan, it's true. i couldn't use my own first name, so used my domain name instead.
posted by t r a c y at 4:42 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by t r a c y at 4:42 AM on April 22, 2004
adampsyche, I had the same problem. I even added a new post on my blogspot account that had not been used since April 2002. No luck.
posted by sebas at 4:53 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by sebas at 4:53 AM on April 22, 2004
yup Gyan, it's true. i couldn't use my own first name, so used my domain name instead.
Well, there goes stavrosthewonderchicken@. At least that means that that bastard The God Complex can't squat on it either!
(That's kinda dumb, isn't it, though? What would be the rationale for 6 char max usernames?)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:12 AM on April 22, 2004
Well, there goes stavrosthewonderchicken@. At least that means that that bastard The God Complex can't squat on it either!
(That's kinda dumb, isn't it, though? What would be the rationale for 6 char max usernames?)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:12 AM on April 22, 2004
6 character *min*, stavros.
posted by quarantine at 5:18 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by quarantine at 5:18 AM on April 22, 2004
6 character *min*, stavros.
Oh.
...nevermind
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:07 AM on April 22, 2004
Oh.
...nevermind
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:07 AM on April 22, 2004
it's 6-20 characters, i believe, so stavrosthewonderchicken@ is still too long by three characters.
posted by yeoz at 6:48 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by yeoz at 6:48 AM on April 22, 2004
Amberglow, it doesn't seem to like Safari at all. I signed up and it told me Safari wasn't supported but I could try to use it anyway. So I went ahead and set it up and can't do anything besides look at the message from the Gmail team sitting in my box. I can't read the message, change mail boxes or compose a message. I am sure they will work that out eventually, but things that require me to fire up a different browser don't get used a lot.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 7:48 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 7:48 AM on April 22, 2004
Damn, and I wanted f@gmail.com (joke credit: angrymodem)
posted by Ryvar at 7:49 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by Ryvar at 7:49 AM on April 22, 2004
displayed as a conversation, sort of newsgroup style.
you mean "sort of any old mail client, sorted by subject" style.
posted by quonsar at 8:25 AM on April 22, 2004
you mean "sort of any old mail client, sorted by subject" style.
posted by quonsar at 8:25 AM on April 22, 2004
I had the same thing, spartacus, and now at work on IE/mac, it's asking for ActiveX...unfortunately, they crippled our IE and I can't change settings. Does Safari support ActiveX?
posted by amberglow at 8:49 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by amberglow at 8:49 AM on April 22, 2004
I get adverts on some incoming Google mails but not others. Have tried testing it with a list of eg holiday-related words and nothing. Then, an innocuous email will produce an ad or two. Odd. But lots of nice little features - they've clearly thought a lot about how people use email.
Best thing about it: it is so very, very fast. Be interesting to see how that carries on as the rollout continues and accounts get more stuff in them.
posted by humuhumu at 9:24 AM on April 22, 2004
Best thing about it: it is so very, very fast. Be interesting to see how that carries on as the rollout continues and accounts get more stuff in them.
posted by humuhumu at 9:24 AM on April 22, 2004
Damn, and I wanted f@gmail.com (joke credit: angrymodem)
I'm pretty sure it was christian who said that, but I know it wasn't me. I, for one, wanted thug@gmail.com, in the vein of "mad wigga style".
I did, however, acquire through accidental means, a very vain account at gmail.
posted by angry modem at 10:08 AM on April 22, 2004
I'm pretty sure it was christian who said that, but I know it wasn't me. I, for one, wanted thug@gmail.com, in the vein of "mad wigga style".
I did, however, acquire through accidental means, a very vain account at gmail.
posted by angry modem at 10:08 AM on April 22, 2004
you mean "sort of any old mail client, sorted by subject" style.
Nope.
By far the greatest thing about Gmail is the unbelievable speed with which you can navigate between folders, messages, and compose screens. I imagine the value of the full-text index will rival the value of the speed if I ever have a large corpus of significant messages on Gmail. Safari will be supported when they release the HTML-only version, but I doubt that version will feature the crazy speed advantage.
posted by sudama at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2004
Nope.
By far the greatest thing about Gmail is the unbelievable speed with which you can navigate between folders, messages, and compose screens. I imagine the value of the full-text index will rival the value of the speed if I ever have a large corpus of significant messages on Gmail. Safari will be supported when they release the HTML-only version, but I doubt that version will feature the crazy speed advantage.
posted by sudama at 10:16 AM on April 22, 2004
are they limiting it to one account for you guys?
just in case, like, you wanted to help a brother out?
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2004
just in case, like, you wanted to help a brother out?
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2004
you mean "sort of any old mail client, sorted by subject" style.
only sort of, the idea is similar but better.
yah sirmissalot, it appears we can only sign up for one account, at least via the blogger sign up.
posted by t r a c y at 10:30 AM on April 22, 2004
only sort of, the idea is similar but better.
yah sirmissalot, it appears we can only sign up for one account, at least via the blogger sign up.
posted by t r a c y at 10:30 AM on April 22, 2004
Ungh, looks like they're encouraging quoting the entire email below your reply. The people who said google was going to go evil were right…
posted by fvw at 11:13 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by fvw at 11:13 AM on April 22, 2004
bummer of a thread. Read about how other people are in a service you aren't. Marketing!
posted by rudyfink at 11:30 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by rudyfink at 11:30 AM on April 22, 2004
Out of curiousity, why do services put minimum lengths on usernames at all? Anyone know?
Ungh, looks like they're encouraging quoting the entire email below your reply. The people who said google was going to go evil were right…
Don't tell me you're one of those people who writes their response below the quoted email...
posted by dobbs at 11:31 AM on April 22, 2004
Ungh, looks like they're encouraging quoting the entire email below your reply. The people who said google was going to go evil were right…
Don't tell me you're one of those people who writes their response below the quoted email...
posted by dobbs at 11:31 AM on April 22, 2004
A: Because it reverses the logical order of conversation.
Q: Why is bottom-quoting frowned upon?
posted by kindall at 11:52 AM on April 22, 2004
Q: Why is bottom-quoting frowned upon?
posted by kindall at 11:52 AM on April 22, 2004
I just wanted to say thanks, quarantine, for posting this. I had gone to the GMail page on April 1st and signed up to be notified whenever there was something going on. I purposely used an address that's not firmly linked to other accounts, because, well, you know, it's Google. So then I kept having to go to this little-used address to see if there was any announcement or anything. There still isn't, today. And there was nothing on Blogger on Monday. So thanks for alerting us. I didn't want anyone else to snap up soyjoy@gmail.com! (send me some mail, somebody!)
posted by soyjoy at 11:53 AM on April 22, 2004
posted by soyjoy at 11:53 AM on April 22, 2004
Kindall is my new hero.
posted by deadcowdan at 12:28 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by deadcowdan at 12:28 PM on April 22, 2004
Actually I think the quoting is worse than that, and this is my biggest problem with gmail. The service encourages people to not only quote below emails, but to quote the entire message. If you edit any part of a previous response, it no longer gets trimmed.
In order to have stuff trimmed automatically, you need to keep every single byte as-is, which to my mind is worse than promoting the backwards bottom-up quoting, and that the system encourages users to keep redundant information in email.
It's great if you're emailing with other gmail users, since everyone's duplicate junk gets hidden, but if you're emailing regular email folks, it just encourages sending an email with five levels of replies that totals 20kb or more, with a single sentence at the top as the new message.
(Also, MetaTalk isn't the place for so-so MetaFilter posts, this should have just been posted to MeFi proper)
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:01 PM on April 22, 2004
In order to have stuff trimmed automatically, you need to keep every single byte as-is, which to my mind is worse than promoting the backwards bottom-up quoting, and that the system encourages users to keep redundant information in email.
It's great if you're emailing with other gmail users, since everyone's duplicate junk gets hidden, but if you're emailing regular email folks, it just encourages sending an email with five levels of replies that totals 20kb or more, with a single sentence at the top as the new message.
(Also, MetaTalk isn't the place for so-so MetaFilter posts, this should have just been posted to MeFi proper)
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:01 PM on April 22, 2004
This is revolutionary. I'm going to go burn some flags.
posted by The God Complex at 1:25 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by The God Complex at 1:25 PM on April 22, 2004
it's 6-20 characters, i believe, so stavrosthewonderchicken@ is still too long by three characters.
I think he should go with "falstav" and start drinking dry sack and small beer.
posted by The God Complex at 1:27 PM on April 22, 2004
I think he should go with "falstav" and start drinking dry sack and small beer.
posted by The God Complex at 1:27 PM on April 22, 2004
Gmail rocks, thanks for the alert! I logged in to blogger immediately and got my new Gmail account.
posted by crazy finger at 1:56 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by crazy finger at 1:56 PM on April 22, 2004
it's 6-20 characters, i believe, so stavrosthewonderchicken@ is still too long by three characters.
Lose the "the".
posted by wendell at 1:56 PM on April 22, 2004
Lose the "the".
posted by wendell at 1:56 PM on April 22, 2004
How exactly are blogger users being invited? I've got a blogger account and a testing weblog, but I don't see where you'd actually get the invitation..
posted by mrbill at 2:11 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by mrbill at 2:11 PM on April 22, 2004
go to the blogger homepage, mrbill, and log in if you're not already. There's a link from there, on the right.
posted by amberglow at 2:19 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by amberglow at 2:19 PM on April 22, 2004
amberglow: ah, I must not be deemed worthy enough yet, all I see are the home/about/support links, the "Your Blogs" menu, and a link to status.blogger.com. Thanks.
posted by mrbill at 2:24 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by mrbill at 2:24 PM on April 22, 2004
sorry, mrbill...maybe they cross-referenced the people who sent in emails wanting to test it a while ago, with blogger members?
posted by amberglow at 3:05 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by amberglow at 3:05 PM on April 22, 2004
Yeah, thanks for getting my hopes up amberglow :-( After racking my brains to remember my long-disused login details, I find that I am not worthy either. Perhaps the offer has expired or something?
posted by dg at 3:07 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by dg at 3:07 PM on April 22, 2004
No, amberglow, I sent in an e-mail some time ago, but suspect that maybe they only made the offer to those who had updated their Blogger site within x amount of time. I tried adding an entry (without publishing), but that didn't change anything.
posted by dg at 3:12 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by dg at 3:12 PM on April 22, 2004
sorry, guys.
but good news for me ; >
It works in Firefox. Someone send me a test email: amberglowATgmail.com
posted by amberglow at 3:30 PM on April 22, 2004
but good news for me ; >
It works in Firefox. Someone send me a test email: amberglowATgmail.com
posted by amberglow at 3:30 PM on April 22, 2004
gmail (and orkut and even MetaFilter) reminds me of Whitewashing the Fence – I want it more because I can't have it.
posted by timeistight at 3:58 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by timeistight at 3:58 PM on April 22, 2004
Timesight, I feel exactly the same way. I hate webmail, but I want a gmail account, just for the sake of having one. Orkut is the only social network i'm on, and I never use it. I just signed up because I was so excited to be invited. I'm all about consumption I suppose.
posted by chunking express at 4:17 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by chunking express at 4:17 PM on April 22, 2004
the only reason I'm desperate for an invite is so I can grab a moderately decent email address, before the service explodes.
posted by Marquis at 4:56 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by Marquis at 4:56 PM on April 22, 2004
Any "active" blogger users out there who don't want their fancy schmancy new gmail address? Just sayin...charity is a virtue...
posted by Jimbob at 5:17 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by Jimbob at 5:17 PM on April 22, 2004
its pretty damn easy to make a blogger account. won't that work? make one, copy MF posts for a day, sign up for gmail?
posted by th3ph17 at 5:22 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by th3ph17 at 5:22 PM on April 22, 2004
That doesn't seem to work though, th3ph17...it appears to only be open to Blogger users who have posted in some period previous to the announcement. I haven't posted to a blogger blog in about 6 months, and the offer's not open to me, it appears. Maybe we'll learn more over the next few days.
posted by Jimbob at 5:29 PM on April 22, 2004
posted by Jimbob at 5:29 PM on April 22, 2004
I haven't posted to a blogger blog in about 6 months, and the offer's not open to me
Ditto, sadly.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:18 PM on April 22, 2004
Ditto, sadly.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:18 PM on April 22, 2004
thanks to all that emailed me...
one cool thing about gmail is a "starred" option, that separates out emails you want to keep handy. (unless eudora has it too, and i never knew?)
posted by amberglow at 7:28 PM on April 22, 2004
one cool thing about gmail is a "starred" option, that separates out emails you want to keep handy. (unless eudora has it too, and i never knew?)
posted by amberglow at 7:28 PM on April 22, 2004
one cool thing about gmail is a "starred" option
Gmail users have stars upon thars?
Where is Sylvester McMonkey McBean when we need him?
Stupid Blogger.com doesn't give me the link either :(
posted by filmgoerjuan at 11:47 PM on April 22, 2004
Gmail users have stars upon thars?
Where is Sylvester McMonkey McBean when we need him?
Stupid Blogger.com doesn't give me the link either :(
posted by filmgoerjuan at 11:47 PM on April 22, 2004
I'm not entirely sure using meta threads for follow-ups that don't warrant an entire MeFi thread is a good idea.
I would go so far as to say that I am entirely sure that it's a bad idea.
posted by jjg at 12:20 AM on April 23, 2004
I would go so far as to say that I am entirely sure that it's a bad idea.
posted by jjg at 12:20 AM on April 23, 2004
TANSTAAFL.
*leans back and enjoys the lemming parade as they rush toward another apparently unlearnable lesson*
posted by quonsar at 7:51 AM on April 23, 2004
*leans back and enjoys the lemming parade as they rush toward another apparently unlearnable lesson*
posted by quonsar at 7:51 AM on April 23, 2004
If only, as a massive faceless corporation that possibly spuriously promises to do no evil, Google (personified) realized, that to maintain continuity between Phase Eleventy-seventeen of the netsquilification and devagination of the Coming Singularity, there must exist as a kind of reality-knitting fabric the inarguable necessity of the need for a 23-character poultry-related email address @gmail.com (the absence of which portends the end of the textywank world as we know it, which, with good faith (feeling fine or otherwise), might be avoided), all would be well.
Just sayin'.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:04 AM on April 23, 2004
Just sayin'.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:04 AM on April 23, 2004
ah, I must not be deemed worthy enough yet, all I see are the home/about/support links, the "Your Blogs" menu, and a link to status.blogger.com. Thank
Yep me too.
posted by dejah420 at 10:40 AM on April 23, 2004
Yep me too.
posted by dejah420 at 10:40 AM on April 23, 2004
All the kewl kids already have gmail ;)
Its interesting to me to see all the posts here and elsewhere about blogger members trying to remember their old password or make a quick post to "seem" active in order to get a gmail account.
I'm betting more people have left blogger than use blogger. The ones who remained deserve gmail for their troubles.
posted by justgary at 4:35 PM on April 23, 2004
Its interesting to me to see all the posts here and elsewhere about blogger members trying to remember their old password or make a quick post to "seem" active in order to get a gmail account.
I'm betting more people have left blogger than use blogger. The ones who remained deserve gmail for their troubles.
posted by justgary at 4:35 PM on April 23, 2004
"The people who still use Blogger deserve gmail."
That could be taken more ways than one...
*snicker*
posted by wendell at 7:10 PM on April 23, 2004
That could be taken more ways than one...
*snicker*
posted by wendell at 7:10 PM on April 23, 2004
That could be taken more ways than one...
And I meant it in the "snicker" way. ;)
posted by justgary at 7:51 PM on April 23, 2004
And I meant it in the "snicker" way. ;)
posted by justgary at 7:51 PM on April 23, 2004
I keep checking Gmail.com every day or so to see if they have changed anything about "When can I get an account?" I also have a change detection service launched against it.
This morning I logged in to blogger, hoping against hope, and came up empty, still/again. I went over to Gmail and saw that they added some information about privacy.... Interesting stuff, I think, including https access and other stuff.
I know that most of us have brushed off the "Google's gonna read my email" meme, but Google's still fighting to teach the commonman.
posted by ajpresto at 5:09 AM on April 24, 2004
This morning I logged in to blogger, hoping against hope, and came up empty, still/again. I went over to Gmail and saw that they added some information about privacy.... Interesting stuff, I think, including https access and other stuff.
I know that most of us have brushed off the "Google's gonna read my email" meme, but Google's still fighting to teach the commonman.
posted by ajpresto at 5:09 AM on April 24, 2004
Anyone still have the URL their blogger link took them to? Maybe we could do to Gmail what that bunch of nerds did to MeFi memberships?
posted by armoured-ant at 7:27 PM on April 24, 2004
posted by armoured-ant at 7:27 PM on April 24, 2004
I got one of my friends using blogger just when I stopped using. He sent me an email saying he has a gmail account (son of a bitch), but also passed along the link that got him one. (http://www.blogger.com/gmail.pyra) I didn't get anywhere with it, and didn't look any further into it.
posted by chunking express at 9:04 PM on April 24, 2004
posted by chunking express at 9:04 PM on April 24, 2004
Nope. It don't work. The link, I believe, is http://www.blogger.com/gmail.pyra . This redirects to main.pyra, I believe, for those who aren't worthy.
You can see a little more information here, including a screen shot for the worthy.
On preview: What chunking express said.
posted by ajpresto at 2:41 AM on April 25, 2004
You can see a little more information here, including a screen shot for the worthy.
On preview: What chunking express said.
posted by ajpresto at 2:41 AM on April 25, 2004
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
Among the neat features I've discovered in my cursory exploration, there seems to be server polling going on: my screen was updated with an alert of a new message without my having to refresh. In terms of weird features, quoted text in emails is automatically surpressed, and there seems no setting to have it displayed by default.
It's not just an issue of a "secret URL", by the way: there is something that is at least a checksum embedded in the link you're given, presumably related to the name and email address that Blogger has on file (which are also embedded in the URL.) I don't have the inclination to try to reverse-engineer it right now, but others are welcome to try.
posted by quarantine at 3:09 AM on April 22, 2004