When Google first announced Gmail, it was brushed off as an April Fools’ Day joke
Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks about Gmail features in May 2018. By Alex Horton Alex Horton General assignment reporter covering national and breaking news Email Bio Follow April 1 at 1:30 PM It’s difficult to remember a time when Google did not oversee, organize and mine every aspect of our existence, but in 2004, its new email service seemed so powerful that it couldn’t be real.
That capacity does not seem like a whole lot now. But in 2004, Hotmail and Yahoo offered a comparatively minuscule two or four megabytes of email storage — barely enough to hold Myspace password reset links and flat-earth conspiracy theory forwards from your uncle.But there were a couple of other hitches, too. Google announced the limited test run of Gmail on April 1, 2004.
“She kvetched about spending all her time filing messages or trying to find them,” said co-founder Larry Page. “And when she’s not doing that, she has to delete email like crazy to stay under the obligatory four megabyte limit. So she asked, ‘Can’t you people fix this?’ ”The Washington Post’s Mike Musgrove wondered that at the time, and he spoke to experts who weighed the curious date of launch against what made Google unique in a sea of other search engines.
CNN reported that day that the initiative was a little bit of both of what many suspected — a real service, cheekily timed.If Gmail was forward-looking to an increasingly connected world, so were concerns over tech companies lording over private data and selling it to companies in exchange for a so-called free service.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Google is rolling out 'dynamic emails' to make Gmail more useful and interactiveGoogle said dynamic emails would begin rolling out on the web today and that mobile support is 'coming soon.'
Read more »
Watch out for these April Fools’ pranks from Google, McDonalds, Fatburger — and Tom BradyMarketing experts warn most brands should avoid April Fools’ hoaxes in the “fake news” age, however.
Read more »
Google adds game of Snake to Maps for April Fools' Day, here's how to playThe Google Maps snake game allowed users to play Snake in famed cities across the world.
Read more »
Google just added the classic phone game 'Snake' to Google Maps as an April Fools' Day gag — here's how to play itThis is no April Fools' Day joke: 'Snake' is playable within Google Maps right now.
Read more »
A coder created a 'Killed by Google' graveyard for the search firm's now dead productsKilled by Google lists 150 now-defunct products, from services and apps such as Google+ and Google Currents, to hardware such as Revolv.
Read more »
Google will let you stream free audio commentary for the rest of the March Madness games on Google Home speakersAnyone with a Google Assistant-powered smart speaker, like the Google Home, just has to say: 'Hey Google, play NCAA March Madness on Westwood One.”
Read more »
House committee chairs demand full Mueller report by April 2 deadlineBREAKING: 6 House committee chairs sent a letter to AG Barr requesting that he submit the full report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation to Congress by next Tuesday, April 2.
Read more »
Democratic chairmen call on Barr to submit Mueller report to Congress by April 2In a three-page letter to the attorney general, they wrote that his summary of the Mueller report 'is not sufficient for Congress.'
Read more »
Weld sets April deadline for Trump primary challengeFormer Massachusetts Gov. William Weld says he’s leaning toward challenging President Donald Trump in the 2020 Republican primary, and expects to make a decision in April
Read more »