GMAIL

[john]

Yea, now that google has come out with froogle, the product search catelog, they have decided to go all out. Google will be creating a mail server. Just about like everything google does, it will be the best around. The best part....you will get up to 1 GIG of space. Yes, 1 GIG. Talk about some serious mp3 swapping. If it is easy to use, efficent, and as large as they say, I will switch in an instant. That would way kick compared to hotmail or yahoo.

[Yankee]

The problem with Gmail is that they scan your messages for keywords and place advertisements right in your message. California legislature yesterday started the process of trying to ban Gmail, since them scanning all of your messages would be an invasion of privacy. Kind of interesting. I would love the space, but I don't want to have a bunch of ads placed right in every email message that I get.

[john]

Yea, I heard the same thing, but yahoo and hotmail are attempting to do the same thing anyways. I even heard hotmail can already do it, they just haven't used it yet.

[The Siege]

I think they are talking about 'sponsored links', which I've seen on some websites already. They aren't like ads in the messages, they're words that are double underlined and link to a page, and also have a mouseover description. Say I sent someone the following email:

[quote=Example email]Yeah, I really like video games, they are really cool.[/quote]

The google scanner would pick out the term video games, and make it a sponsored link to, say, GameFly (or whoever is paying them). Mousing over the link would bring up a small yellow descriptor box saying something like "gamefly.com, rent the newest games, and keep them if you like them" or something.

It's a pretty cool idea if you ask me, and I imagine that's what they're talking about.

[Realm]

Like this: http://www.neoseeker.com/, just read one of the news stories. Words in green link to ads.