Netizen

Friday, April 03, 2009

Five Years Of Gmail: What Would Gsus Do?

How time flies! Gmail is five years old already. That is ages in internet time. I was an immediate convert and an evangelist. It is more than extra space, it is different, I would rant and rave. There still are people around who have email but who are not on Gmail. I try not to judge. But I will have to admit, it's hard not to.

Begs the question, what will Gmail be like in five years? It is hard to predict. I will give the Steve Jobs answer. When asked what the iPhone will look like in five years, he said, I don't know. He said he could not have predicted five years earlier there would be maps on the iPhone, but you got maps. So it is not easy to predict what technological breakthroughs we will see over the next few years that will make new, exciting features possible.

But I do have a wish list.

(1) More Space

That was Gmail's first selling point. The least it could do is stay up with the hunger of the power users. Say if you offer 50 GB, and only 1% of your users use 10 GB or more, you still get to boast that you are offering 50 GB, right?

If the internet were to end up with a trillion websites, Google should not be complaining, right? More pages, more searches, more ads, more revenue. Gmail is the same way. More email inside that Gmail account, more ads you get to serve. So why complain?

I am especially thinking of my friend Sree here. I read his piece in Forbes earlier, and I am unhappy that Gmail has been bleeding his wallet.

(2) Two Inboxes

One for people I have emailed at least once, and one for the rest. I should not have to create a new, private email account just because I became famous, right? This arrangement would also add to Gmail's already great spam filter. I mean, if I have never emailed you before.

(3) My Gmail Should Be My Phone Number

One global phone number. I hope all the hype about Google Voice is true. There is talk Google Voice is to be integrated with Gmail. Swell.

(4) Video Mail

Video chat is great, but so is text chat. There is text chat, and there is text email. So there needs to be video mail.

(5) Social

Keep adding social elements to the service.

(6) Better Integration

I should be able to go from my Gmail account straight to my Google Reader account, and why not? Maybe there are a few other services to integrate.

The Colbert Report

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Biz Stone

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Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Search: Much Is Lacking
Google Books: Primitive
Google Audio, Google Office
The Next Search Engine
Google Video
Google: Free, Wireless Internet Access, Pay Per View Video
Yahoo Phone, Google Office, Google Finance
Email, Search, News
Google's To Do List Keeps Growing
In Defense Of Google Digitizing Books
Google's Corporate Transparency
Google And Languages
Google Again
Google Video Has Hit The Docks
Google And Browsers And More
Google: Poised To Be The Number One Software Company In The World

Monday, March 30, 2009

The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream

The Search Results

I am not even that old, and I vividly remember when AltaVista was king.

The Links

They are everywhere.

The Inbox

The Inbox was not copyrighted by Hotmail.

The Stream

The Stream has not been copyrighted by Twitter, so I was perfectly cool when Facebook went ahead and imitated Twitter. Of course they can do that.

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

Fractal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A fractal is generally "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of ..." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

Apple invented the PC. Microsoft invented that original rectangle: Windows 95. That was the peak year for Windows. Netscape slid in to suggest a browser is all you need. Google came to say, you don't even need a browser, you just need one site, a search engine, your gateway to all that there is online. Facebook came along to say you don't need the entire net, you just need people you know and you need to see the internet through that prism, let them filter it for you, it is too chaotic out there. Twitter came along to say people are important but not that important. All you need is bite size information, bite size communication. It is not who you know, since you can follow anyone you want. It is what you know, what you can know.

I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

How Twitter Works In Theory

That begs the question, what might be next?

I guess you could start all over again with the mobile space, and claim, well, Apple went ahead and invented the iPhone all over again. So watch the drama unfold.

But about the big rectangle itself? What's next there?

Right now I am more interested in posing the question than attempting an answer, although I guess I could take shots, make guesses, offer vagueness. Be nebulous.

But then I personally might be more interested in stuff beyond the rectangle. The rectangle is fascinating, but not of primary professional interest to me. I am more interested in Web 3.0, or what I call Web 3.0. (Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb, Competing For the Web 3.0 Definition)

What is that journey from big, ugly mainframes to PCs to Twitter? Can it be argued that we have tried to get closer to the human dimension? And beyond? On Twitter, it can be argued we are at though process level. So it really is about people, right?

And if each human being is unique, the web is so much poorer for every human being who is not yet online.

Fractal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cynthia Lanius' Lessons: A Fractals Lesson - Introduction
Sprott's Fractal Gallery
The Spanky Fractal Database
Fractals
The fractal geometry of nature - Google Books Result
Fractal -- from Wolfram MathWorld
Fractals
Coolmath4kids - Fractals ( Geometry )
fractalus (Fractals/Fractal Art, Contests, and Info)

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