I hate loads of rubbish, like this in particular.
Why GMail is so popular? Why its the biggest thing on this side of the universe? Yes, it is because of the space it offers, and some of the unique features it has. Not to mention that it is also owned by the largest internet search engine company, Google.
Who is to say that GMail is not in beta testing stage? That changes are not continually being made to the service? (Such as backend and system things), that reported bugs are being fixed. Not him, not anyone else. Just because you can’t see any changes being made does not mean the system is no longer being developed, it may even be that the code running behind the public demonstration is not even the latest.
The idea of the whole invite system is to get as many users in to using GMail as much as possible to get as much testing on the system before it is actually released to the mainstream public. That’s exactly what happened, and how it happened was intentional.
So what about the compression? It doesn’t mean you don’t get your 1000 MB of email space, it just means its compressed down on the server. Hotmail and Yahoo already have similar things in place where existing/older messages are compressed on the server to save space. It seems logical to me.
People give away invites, out of their own generosity. They don’t have to. Who cares if they do?
You can’t use the argument about there being so many developed applications for GMail. What about Windows for example? TweakUI, TweakCPL, XSetup, Powertoys, and every other “extension” program there is for Microsoft Windows.
And the answer to whats next, yes, GMail will be able to cook your dinner soon too. :rolleyes:
It does appear that the author has posted a “counter article”. At first I was going to sit by and follow Lobster’s advice and not actually reply to it. I just wanted to point this out: Maddox’s website. Segosa’s website. Wow, they look pretty familiar to me. I wonder who copied who. These are the lame kind of tactics this author uses - he picked up on a spelling mistake and afew grammer mistakes in my article. Good work genious :rolleyes:
Now. When you develop beta software, do you put it all online for users to see whilst it’s still buggy or not properly tested? Sure, some companies do. Others have a commitment to their users to provide a stable service. Look at Google. Look how popular GMail is. If Google were to update to a buggy version, even though its still in beta, what would the look the users would cast against it?
In his updated article, his counter argument about the space was he was just saying that GMail don’t reserve you a whole 1 GB of space. That’s exactly the same as other email providers such as Hotmail and Yahoo. Don’t you think that when Hotmail ups its free accounts to 250 MB there is going to be a lot of accounts being moved around on servers? To minimise this they compress the emails, which also means you don’t get 250 MB of “actual” space.
You can visit his site all you want too, he needs the hits.
This is my last post regarding this matter, as I couldn’t really care about what this person posts, I was just picking an example. 
Comments
KnightieBoy (September 11th, 2004, 2:04 am)
hahaha, so true.. I completely agree. My opnion? I hate that kind of rubbish too, and I have 6 gmail invites, but the weird things is that my contacts (n00bs) don’t know anything about gmail, thus don’t want it. I’m happy with gmail and people who are not, can go back to their 2 mb (soon 250 mb?) hotmail imho
Lobster (September 11th, 2004, 9:17 am)
There is truth in both sides of the story. Yes, of course Google have designed Gmail to be very popular. Yes, debatably, there is more hype over Gmail than it deserves. But then who cares? On the flip side, they’ve made big waves in cyberspace by giving users the freedom to keep as much as they like (virtually). I personally agree with kboy - Gmail is good so why complain?
You’ll notice that segosa has posted a followup to this post. I have to say that this has turned it into a blog war, rather than a post followed by a reaction to it. The arguments in the “come-back” aren’t even that solid. Please don’t do the same in response Chris. It would be such a waste.
Matt Light (September 11th, 2004, 2:41 pm)
Since Segosa doesn’t have a way to comment, I’ll post my reply to his blog entry here.
Segosa is right… it should be as instead of has but who gives a damn? Is this an English test? Not me. I understood what Chris meant. But that’s besides the fact because if you’re going to make an argument I wouldn’t use typos as a supporting argument.
“I guess it’s just my imagination that Yahoo! has a search feature too.” Did Chris say that the search feature is one of the unique features? No… but even if he did it would be unique because it has unique features of its own.
As for the complaint that Gmail has been in beta testing for a while now without too many noticable changes… beta testing is usually to fix the bugs and doesn’t require features to be added or the layout to change.
I could probably keep going but quite frankly I don’t feel like taking the time to
Lobster (September 12th, 2004, 6:53 am)
I’m disappointed that you made a response to Segosa’s comeback. Until that point you were simply making a review of an article about Gmail. Segosa had taken it as more than it was and felt the need to retaliate with half-arsed arguments. It was clear that he wasn’t accepting a perfectly reasonable point of view but you just had to go and bounce back, as if his post had made your original post seem untrue.
You also didn’t even do a good job of criticising his response.
Firstly, you made an irrelevant criticism of his site (the maddox thing). You’ve now brought it down to the level of Segosa’s bickering comments about grammar. The rapport between you two now becomes a childish fight over who’s right and who’s wrong.
You didn’t handle the beta debate that well either. Your original comment was fine, and poorly responded to by Segosa. Of course it’s possible that Google are in the process of optimising code, making the spam filter more intelligent, fixing obscure bugs, fixing compatibility issues not applicable to you or other things you can’t see, as well as conducting GUI reviews and reviewing their business strategy to see if it is appropriate to bring Gmail out of the beta stage.
So I’m sorry to see that you’ve continued it into a two-way catfight, but so be it. Just don’t bore me with any more of it.
I have to admit your defence of the spelling/grammar attacks was admirable
You ended up making 2 mistakes in that sentence. I don’t want to be picky, because my point is that picking them out is lame, but I think we all knew that it was lame so there wasn’t much need to retort. I will point out to you again, Segosa, that your latest post contains 3 of its own grammatical mistakes. Let’s not go picking holes in things that we can’t do ourselves.
Chris Boulton (September 12th, 2004, 2:39 pm)
The whole idea of the ‘Maddox’ critisism thing was to point out the level of the argument that Segosa had bought it down to. In fact, it was me pretending to act like Segosa would respond.
He posted a response to this, and I really could not be bothered continuing this little argument. He will get what is coming to him.
Matt Light (September 12th, 2004, 11:04 pm)
Lobster,
I kind of agree with you but only because Segosa’s blog (he’d argue it isn’t a blog :p) is only for rants. I didn’t really think of it until now but chances are everyone is going to disagree with at least one thing on his site. In fact, I only agree with one article/entry/whatever you call it on his site.
Every once in a while it is a bit of a relief to get in an argument with someone… not because of the actual argument but because of the ability to feel in a better mood once the argument is over (better meaning better than you felt during the argument :D)