Launching Gmail

7/29/2019 Launching Gmail

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The Launch of the Web Based E-mail Service by Google Inc.

Richard Ivey School of Business

University of Western Ontario


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Birth ofGmail A web based E-mail Service

On April 1, 2004 Google Inc. announced the launch of Gmail.

A free of charge web based E-mail service.

Allowed users up to 1 gigabyte of storage capacity.


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Gmails Primary Interface


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Focusing on 1 Gigabyte Storage Space


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1 Gigabyte of storage space for its users

100 MB of storage space for its basic accounts

Initial Storage space of 2MB


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Googles Brainchild Formation

Formed in 1998 as Google Inc. with a seed funding of $100,000 by founder

of Sun Micro Systems in Menlo Park California.

On September 21, 1999, the Google.com came off beta ( for public use)

Located online at www.google.com, the site claimed to have nearly every

website in the world indexed and made searchable to anyone.


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What Does the word Google mean?

The word Google comes from the mathematical representation of the word

Googol which is expressed as the numeric figure one followed by hundredzeroes.

1 googol = 1.0 10100


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Google Inc Revenue Generation

The company generated revenues through products like AdWords,

AdSense and Google Search Application(GSA)


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Self served, auction based advertising program that allowed advertisers to specify

the relevant search or content topics for each of their ads.

It allows publishers in the Google Network of content sites to serve automatic

text, image, video, and rich media adverts that are targeted to site content and

audience.

Is a web search engine owned by Google Inc. It is the

most-used search engine on the World Wide Web,

receiving several hundred million queries each day

through its various services.


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GmailAn Independent Project from Google Inc.

In 2003, Google earned a profit of $105.6 million.

Devoted 20% of their time to work on independent projects.

Google News, AdSense and Gmail were a part of those independent projects.


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Gmailmaking it Off Beta

Started making the Beta testing, involving around few thousands users in the 3

6 months beta testing.

Interested users were informed that their e-mail would be scanned by Googles

computer; not by humans.

Gmail incorporated keyboard shortcuts that allowed users to move around

messages; for example, O opened a message, N moved to the next message

and C composed a new message increasing user accessibility and mobility.

Offered POP and IMAP forwarding allowing users to create local copies ofmessages.


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Gmails Revenue Generation

Revenues would be generated from advertising based on keywords scanned from

messages and delivered over the service.

Google would scan the message instantaneously, examine the scan of the e-mail

and extract what Google termed as concepts to target relevant ads.

Whenever the user clicked on any Advertisement, the Advertiser would be able to

see the users Internet Protocol(IP) address instantly.

To protect the user interest, Gmail would not deliver Pop ups or Banner Ads.


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Gmails Tracking of Personal Information of the User

Whenever a person used Google search, a tracking cookie was updated on the

computer therefore whenever he opened his mailbox, the related search would bevisible laterally.

Collected the information during the Sign up phase and link it up with the search

history.

Google could match personal information such as name, e-mail address, postal

address to subjects the user had search previously.

The same data could be invaluable to businesses and law enforcementagencies to track a specific individual.


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Google Back Up Services

Google used to keep a back up of the users messages in case of system crash by

making a copy of the mailbox.

Even after the e-mail was deleted, it was stored for indeterminate amount of

time on Googles Server.

Storage served many purposes including maintaining good customer services.

Though this technical infrastructure created an odd situation regarding the legal

rights of the individual which was potentially affected by Google.


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Discrepancy with the Privacy Groups

The Center for Democracy did not accept the storage policy of Google.

Google stated that it was a standard procedure for any e-mail service provider to

store information even after its termination

Privacy Groups in US denounced Googles Plan.

Privacy International filed complaints with privacy and data protection regulators

among 17 countries in Europe along with Canada and Australia.


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Legislation Wanted to put a Ban on Gmail

On April 12, 2004, a democratic California State Senator announced that she was

drafting a legislation to block Gmail.

The Reason was It could scan incoming e-mails and place advertising in

personal messages after searching them for keywords.

On April 21, 2004, Walla, an Israeli Web portal announced plans to launch a free

e-mail service with 1 Gigabyte of storage space.

They were not happy with Gmails model of generating revenues, but they

hoped to be ahead of Gmail, though they did not comment on how it would

generate revenues.


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Googles Re-positioning Message to its Audience

Google respects the privacy of the individual that use Google Search Engine

Services(GSA), buy not willfully disclosing the information to any third party withoutthe individuals permission.

Google uses cookie to improve the services, it stores user preferences in cookies

and tracks user trends and patterns of searches.

Google does not disclose the cookies to third parties unless demanded by any legal

process such as search warrant or court order.


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Gmails Further Development Present Scenario

On April 24, 2012, Gmail announced the increase of free storage in Gmail from 7.5

GB to 10 GB ("and counting")


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Personalization in Gmail

Gmail introduced HD themes that can be used as a Home Page Background

while the user is signed into Gmail.

Adding a personal image to ones email gives one the highest form of

uniqueness, as compared to standard backgrounds that have been there.

In November 2011, Gmail came up with more customization of its web basedmail services.


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Personalization of the Home Page


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Gmail Code Change

Gmail's JavaScript was rewritten in the middle of 2007 and was released to

users starting on October 29, 2007.

The new version had a redesigned contacts section, quick contacts box and

chat popups, which were added to names in the message list as well as the

contact list.

These coding changes mean that only users of Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2,

Google Chrome and Safari 3.0 (or more recent versions) are officially

supported by Gmail and can fully use the new code.


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Limitations of Gmail to the User

Gmail does not allow users to send or receive executable files or archives

containing executable files if it recognizes the file extension as one used forexecutable files or archives.

Before September 29, 2010, Gmail sorted email only by conversations

(threads), which can be a problem for large conversations.

As a result of complaints from some users, Google made conversation

view optional starting September 29, 2010.


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Gmails Secured Connection

Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China were hacked insophisticated attacks thought to use phishing and exploit a

vulnerability in Internet Explorer in late 2009.

Any (web mail or other) mail system which stores and retains user'semail contents is an attractive target for such attacks.

Gmail is popular with security-conscious users because of its early HTTPS

secure (encrypted) connection support, and its more-recent HTTPS-only

default setting.


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Launching ofGoogle + A Multilingual Social Network

It was launched in June 28, 2011. As of September 2012, it has a total of 400

million registered users of whom 100 million are active on a monthly basis.

On September 20, 2011, Google+ was opened to everyone 18 years of age or

older without the need for an invitation.

President Obama answered questions about the State of the Union posed by

citizens in the first-ever completely virtual interview from the White House.

Aired live on the official White House Google+ page on January 30, 2012 at

5.30 pm.


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Google + Home Page with the Unique +1 Button similar to Facebook


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Gmail Moves into the IOS

On 16

th

November, 2011, Gmail launched its web based e-mail applicationfor Apple IOS operating system.

Gmail IOS App goes compatible with all devices running onIOS 4 and beyond.

Running on iPhone, iPadand iPod Touch.


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Interface of Gmail for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch


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Gmails Interface for Android Devices


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Functional Differences Between Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail


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Whom Does Google Share Information With?

Google shares information about the user with Advertisers, Business Partners and

Sponsorers.

Google can disclose how frequently the average Google user visits Google or

which other query words are most often used.

Google does changes its Privacy Policies, when done, they keep the user aware

about the changes, so that they are informed about what information is

collected, how they use it and on what circumstances they disclose it.


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Documents

Launching Gmail