Six ways Gmail revolutionized e-mail - CNN.com

Image by Gubatron via Flickr

Editor's note: Pete Cashmore is founder and CEO of Mashable, a popular blog about social media. He writes a weekly column about social networking and technology for CNN.com.

London, England (CNN) -- Thursday marks the sixth birthday of Google's pioneering e-mail service: Gmail.

Groundbreaking in some respects and controversial in others, Gmail radically altered our expectations of what a webmail client could be.

1. More space

Gmail launched with 1 gigabyte of free storage, an inconceivable amount at the time. For many e-mail addicts (myself included), this was reason enough to switch to Google's new service, putting pressure upon rivals Yahoo and Microsoft to upgrade their offerings or face a user exodus.

In June 2004, in response to Gmail's launch, Yahoo increased its storage limits from 4 megabytes to 100 megabytes. Hotmail, too, reacted to the Gmail threat by providing more storage: Some users saw their Hotmail limits increase from 2MB to 25MB.

In April 2005, Gmail raised the stakes yet again: Free storage was increased to 2GB, with a promise to increase the storage capacity available to users continually. In the same month, Yahoo Mail bumped its free storage up to 1GB. Hotmail played catch-up in late 2006, rolling out 1GB of free storage to users.

2. The perpetual beta

Love it or loathe it, Gmail popularized the use of the "beta" tag on many "web 2.0" products, indicating an early release that may contain bugs. The effect on Web development was at first a positive one: It became more acceptable to invite users to test the earliest versions of a product, and rapid development cycles became common.

And yet "beta" soon lost its sheen due to overuse: Not only did every Web startup co-opt the term to add "web 2.0 glitz" to a product, but Google itself devalued the term by leaving Gmail in beta for five years.

This extended beta period turned the "beta" label into a geek punch line of sorts. When Gmail left beta in July, Google conceded that "over the last five years, a beta culture has grown around web apps, such that the very meaning of 'beta' is debatable."

3. Conversation threading

Many e-mail clients now "thread" conversations on the same topic, but it was Gmail that popularized the concept.

Google says of the feature, "In other e-mail systems, responses appear as separate messages in your inbox, forcing you to wade through all your mail to follow the conversation. In Gmail, replies to replies (and replies to those replies) are displayed in one place, in order, making it easier to understand the context of a message."

It's a simple evolution that makes a huge difference.

4. Labels, not folders

Gmail's new way to sort e-mail seemed alien in 2004: Folders were replaced with "labels." If a mail was about both"art" and "design," a user could apply both labels rather than deciding which folder to place the message into.

Although this "tagging" concept was familiar to users of the bookmarking service Delicious, this new way to sort e-mail took some getting used to. Those who embraced it still swear it's the best way to organize your mail.

5. Archive, don't delete

Before Gmail, storage space was a scarce resource. Once you were done with a mail, you deleted it to save space. Gmail not only offered a massive amount of storage, but Google encouraged users to archive their e-mails for reference, rather than deleting them.

Google was so committed to this new paradigm that the "Delete" option was somewhat hidden. In early 2006, however, Google caved to pressure from users and added a more visible delete button.

6. Targeted ads

Considered a nuisance by some and a privacy invasion by others, Gmail scans your e-mails to deliver personalized ads in the sidebar. Whether the innovation was an advance or a step back is debatable: Before Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft served up distracting banner ads alongside e-mails.

While Google controversially chose to target its Gmail ads based on the content of your e-mails, these ads were at least text-based and more easily ignored than those that came before.

In what other ways did Gmail change your e-mail experience? Let me know in the comments.

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Magma: A Billboard Hot 100 for Online Video

August 25th, 2009 | by Ben Parr

Online video is a giant sea of mostly unfiltered content. There were 11.2 billion video streams in July in the US alone. That’s a ton of video.

So how do you go about finding the best video the web has to offer? You can just watch the popular listings on YouTube, but you’re going to get a lot of Fred and Phillip DeFranco. Some companies have launched their own solutions, including eGuders (media expert recommendations) and Reddit.tv (browse top videos on Reddit).

But now the founder of RocketBoom has launched his own solution: Mag.ma, a video aggregator and rating algorithm that acts like the Billboard Hot 100 of online video.

Hop onto the website and it’s immediately apparent what you should do: watch videos. The system takes videos from YouTube (), Hulu (), Vimeo (), TED, and more. Each of the videos are ranked in terms of “hotness” on a scale of 1 to 11. All of this is done in a column-based interface to show where Magma is finding top videos.

Magma also offers users the chance to interact with the Magma charts, either by adding videos (there’s a bookmarklet to help) or by signing up and personalizing your account and channel list.

Magma helps solve a difficult problem – oversaturation of video – with a clever solution and does it with a clean but content-rich interface. It takes into account social sharing on Twitter (), Facebook (), and elsewhere to rank videos. So far, we’re impressed and look forward to hearing more about this new service.

Two New Real-Time Search Engines: Collecta and CrowdEye

From a Search Engine Land Blog post by Greg Sterling:

This morning there are two new entrants in the “real-time” search derby, run by two search veterans. They are CrowdEye and Collecta. CrowdEye is from Ken Moss, who ran search engineering at Microsoft and built the new engine himself. At the helm of Collecta is Gerry Campbell, who was a search executive at AOL and Reuters, as well as an adviser to Summize (now Twitter Search). He recently stepped into the CEO role at the company.

The blog post goes on to offer an in-depth overview of both services.

Direct to Collecta

Direct to Crowd Eye

Source: Search Engine Land

Facebook Readies Rival to Twitter Search

Mashable, June 16, 2009 08:05 PM PDT

Facebook is testing a realtime search engine for users’ news feeds that will challenge Twitter search, the company revealed on its blog today.

Let’s face it: Facebook Search really isn’t all that impressive of a tool. It does a good job of searching for people, groups, and apps, but doesn’t fare well at all if you search a general term like “Iran Election.” With all of the information available on Facebook, wouldn’t it be nice to find images, videos, links, and status updates relevant to a search keyword? Meanwhile, the lack of such a feature means that Twitter search has become the go-to place for realtime information.

Facebook isn’t blind to the issue. The world’s largest social network revealed today that it’s experimenting with a new type of search that could actually make it a social alternative to Google, Bing, and other major search engines. Most importantly, however, it can begin to challenge Twitter in realtime search. Soon, when you search for a recipe or the latest on the Iran crisis, related status updates and photos from friends and public Facebook profiles will appear. In fact, it’s already active for a small group of users.

In a blog announcement, the social networking giant explained that it believes our friends are a strong source of relevant information. If I care about the season finale of Lost, it stands to reason I would want to know how my friends felt about it. This new search feature would do just that. From the Facebook blog:

Those of you in the test group will see new layouts for search results that will continue to include people’s profiles, Facebook Pages, groups and applications, and some entirely new Search features. With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan. You will also be able to search for status updates, posted links and notes in Search from people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. As always, you can control what content you’re sharing by editing your privacy settings here.

The people around us are a powerful source for finding information about new and interesting information — from the latest on last night’s episode of “The Office” and suggestions on what to do for your next vacation to current events.

In short: Facebook is testing this feature with only a small group of users, the feature searches status updates, links, notes, photos, and videos, and it can search both your friends and anybody who has a public profile (like mine). This puts it in direct competition with Twitter search: a realtime search of public messages.

The key question is whether Facebook has waited too long to get into the realtime search game.

Great Firewall of China Winds Down; Censorship Battle Continues

Mashable, Ben Parr, June 9 - Last Tuesday, China took dramatic steps to quiet chatter on the web by blocking Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Hotmail, YouTube, and a wide range of social websites. This was done in advance of the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen massacre.

Well, it looks like the Great Firewall of China is finally coming down, at least for now. According to The Wall Street Journal, Chinese Internet users have been regaining access to most of social networking websites. However, it seems that the bans have not yet been lifted for YouTube () and Blogger (), both subsidiaries of Google ().

This doesn’t mean that China is giving up censorship of the web. Far from it, in fact. We reported just yesterday that China intends to force PC manufacturers to install a software that blocks specific websites that the Chinese government deems detrimental. There’s still no word as to which websites will be blocked by this new software.

While the Great Firewall of China may be disappearing, the battle for freedom on the web is only beginning. There are plenty of workarounds to these blocks and now there is plenty of attention on the Chinese government’s practices. People will continue to fight censorship and oppression, even in the face of insurmountable odds because it’s just human nature. The battle over web censorship in China has only begun.

Source - http://mashable.com/2009/06/09/china-firewall-ends/

Wikipedia Articles Appear in Google News Results

Mashable, Ben Parr, June 9 - Google News has built a strong reputation on its ability to quickly find, sort and deliver news information and sources. It takes information from news websites like CNN and Reuters, newspapers like The New York Times, and news blogs like Mashable (). This provides you with a broad overview of the news.

Wikipedia (), on the other hand, is the world’s largest collection of collaboratively-edited information online. Because the articles are built by the hands of so many users, Wikipedia articles can quickly become comprehensive, detail-rich, and filled with sources and info on major news stories and events. Google () apparently sees great value in that information. So much so, in fact, that Wikipedia articles are starting to appear in Google News results.

While Wikipedia ranks highly in standard Google results, they have never appeared in Google News until now. After all, Wikipedia isn’t a news organization. Yet an article from CNN may provide you with a headline and a few paragraphs of information, but not provide the background and depth that a Wikipedia article can have. If you’re looking for the background on Tienamen Square or the Air France tragedy, you’re likely to find all you need there.

Image Credit: Nieman Lab

Google recently told the Nieman Journalism Lab of Harvard University that they’re currently experimenting with displaying Wikipedia articles as a reference and complement to current events news. That means that you might not see the links yet, and Google could end the experiment and remove Wikipedia results at anytime. Yet it seems that Google has an affinity for the community collaboration model, and we’d be surprised if Google doesn’t continue the integration after it collects enough data.

Are Wikipedia articles better sources of information than credible news sources? No, but they’re not worse, either. Wikipedia articles are an aggregation of news information sources to build a comprehensive picture. And having that information available along with news results provides the user with a different option for finding the information he or she is seeking.

Source - http://mashable.com/2009/06/09/wikipedia-google-news/

Google Squared: Your Search Results in Spreadsheet Form

Mashable, Jennifer Van Grove, June 3 - At Google's Searchology event in May, Google announced the impending arrival of Google Squared, a Labs project that would return search results in spreadsheet form.

Today it appears as though Google Squared has been released out into the wild. Now your search results can take a completely different form, so you can remove content, add suggested columns of your own, and even save your squares for future access.

Since Google Squared is just your search results in column and row form, you're best off making queries on groups of things. So, you can search for television shows and get back a list of shows, accompanying images, descriptions, language, and run time in a format that's much easier to consume than typical search results. You can add additional columns and Google will try to help you fill in the blanks.

The cool thing about Google Squared is that columns are dynamic, so they mesh with the content displayed in the squared results. Cell content is also customizable, so clicking on a cell will let you search for other possible values and display a confidence level (eg. low confidence). We're also big fans of the fact that you can save your Squares, a small but important feature that could turn this into a quick and powerful utility for research.

If you stump the square, you can manually enter a few of the items you want to see compared, and Google () will automatically work to find similar entities and build out a comprehensive square.

Based on our initial use, we see Google Squared being a potentially huge time saver for professionals and consumers who need to do quick comparisons. It's incredibly useful if you know what you're looking for, ie. photo sharing sites, and are hoping to see side-by-side comparisons.

Though we wouldn't say that Google Squared is revolutionary, or able to compete with these 5 things Wolfram Alpha does better than Google, we do think that it's an interesting departure from the status quo of standard list search results. Plus, with the recent release of Bing, it's important that Google continue to innovate and experiment to maintain their dominance in search.

Source - http://mashable.com/2009/06/03/google-squared/

See also - http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-06-03-n25.html

Happn.in Finds What’s Hot in Your City on Twitter

Mashable, Josh Katone, June 1 - Following trending topics on Twitter () (which you can do from the Twitter home page when you're logged in, or from the search page) is a great way to find out what people are talking about around the world.

Often, when a topic is trending on Twitter, it means that some major bit of news is unfolding about the trending term. But news that has global appeal might not be relevant to you when viewed through a local lens. A new site called Happn.in tracks trends locally on Twitter in 52 different metro areas around the world.

Happn.in tracks local Twitter users in 52 global cities, and computes a list of the top 10 phrases used in each city every hour. The top phrases used significantly more often that hour than the last are compiled into a list of trends. As Happn.in explains, "A phrase's hotness is calculated with the ratio of the [percentage of users who used that phrase during the past hour] to the [mean percentage of users who used that phrase over the past week]. Phrases decay exponentially, and quickly drop from the list once they have stopped being used."

Or, in other words, at any given time you should be seeing a list of the top trending topics in your area over the past hour. This is important because very often things trend locally that would be important to residents of that area, but not to the rest of the world. Without a way to track those local trends, it might be difficult to find that sort of news.

For example, in the city of Montreal today news that the Canadiens hockey team has named a new head coach is one of the top trends. That's clearly very important to many residents of the hockey-crazed Canadian city, but not very trend-worthy outside of that geographic area. If you live in Montreal and had no way of tracking local trends, you might miss that news on Twitter.

Happen.in offers a special Twitter account for each of the 52 cities it currently tracks, allowing interested users to get automatic trend updates via Twitter every few hours.

Local trend data could be very valuable for research purposes - for example, being able to track how information about a specific topic spread across Twitter within certain areas or from place to place. Happn.in's Labs page offers a glimpse into that potential, letting users load up trends for any past date (back to May 12, when the site launched). Additionally, more comprehensive data sets are available to researchers on request.

In the future, Happn.in plans to extend trend tracking beyond local metro areas to other groups of users, such as people with common interests, or presumably, the people you follow. Being able to track trending topics within a specific, predefined subset of topically-linked users could be infinitely valuable in terms of exposing relevant breaking news on Twitter.

Source - http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/happenin/