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Gmail and Hotmail

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Google's Gmail was
announced last
week
on April Fool's Day. It's free email with a gigabyte of storage.

Throughout the day, I kept
wondering, "Could this be an April Fool's joke?" Since they
announced on April 1, I was essentially thinking about Gmail the whole day.
Heck, I've been thinking about it so much that I decided to write this blog
entry about it, and Gmail isn't not even available yet to the general public. Brilliant

marketing.

Anyway, Kevin Fox who works on Gmail posted
some screenshots

to tease us all.
Some others.

It also looks like someone named Paul posted up a special message for his S.O. on the

Gmail homepage.
If you click the "Happy Birthday April!" link
at the bottom of the Gmail homepage, you see
the picture here: [image]

. That's nice.

Which brings me to an observation about MSN. This
is similar to
my previous
rant about Office HTML, drawing on my
pre-Microsoft past of being a web guy.

Comparing those Gmail screenshots above to what we currently have in Hotmail, I
notice:

  • Gmail, like most of Google, feels like a web site.  It's mostly

    text,
    links, and buttons with very few pictures.  I'm sure it's fast.

  • Hotmail, like most of MSN, feels like a computer program, in this
    case Outlook.  It's prettier than Gmail, looks more futuristic, and
    feels more powerful.

But, I sometimes feel that MSN doesn't get the web. As an example,
here's part of Hotmail's main page after you login. What parts do you think are

clickable?

[image]

I'd guess the red text and the blue text since they're different colors from
the normal black text.

Answer:

[image]

Wow, was I off.

If Hotmail just stuck to the default web color settings, we'd get blue,
underlined links, and I'd know exactly where to click. How simple would that be?
Every time I run into something like this, I think, "Why do we need
something so complicated?  I'd prefer a simpler web site that was easier to
use."

But that wouldn't be MSN. Despite
what some say,

I think Microsoft does a great job innovating.
MSN in particular has made an incredible transformation these past few years despite

issues like the one above.
My current MSN favorite is MSN Video,
essentially the only place on the web where I can watch TV clips for free.
It's great, and nothing like the average web site.

Hotmail and Gmail.
MSN Search and Google.
Exciting times ahead.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2004
    Wayne,

    >> essentially the only place on the web where I can watch TV clips for free

    of course only incase you're located in the us.

    WM_FYI
    thomas woelfer

  • Anonymous
    April 04, 2004
    LSN WebLog » screen shots of gmail

  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 26, 2004
    can I pls have the username "tox"
    before my brother in silicon valley takes it
    if he, michael toksvig, has taken it ill take
    t0x
    thank you

  • Anonymous
    June 04, 2004
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 16, 2004
    How do i register to gmail??

  • Anonymous
    June 16, 2004
    Hello S. A. J. Shirazi

    People are saying that after about a week, you get 3 invites so you can invite others to use the service. When you get invites, do you think you could share an invite with me?

    My address is matty_c608@msn.com

    Thank you,

    Matt

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