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The Internet Technology

Google Eyes New Email Service, Expansion 287

Posted by simoniker from the ultimate-internet-moogles dept.
GillBates0 writes "According to a CNN/Reuters story, Google is developing a service to attach its lucrative keyword-based advertising to email: ''I'm sure Google is getting more and more concerned about locking in users. It wouldn't surprise me if they did something very sophisticated with e-mail,' said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, who tracks the industry.' Apparently, Google has purchased an e-mail management software maker and registered the domain name googlemail.com. The article also speculates that Google is slowly on the way to becoming a full-fledged portal, with the gradual addition of more and more portal-like features like Froogle."
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Google Eyes New Email Service, Expansion More

Google Eyes New Email Service, Expansion

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  • Moooogle (Score:5, Funny)

    by manganese4 ( 726568 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:04PM (#8024547)
    Just think when you get all your usual spam, it will be annotaed by keyword to other sites that sell similar crap
    • Moooogle

      i think square/enix would have a problem with their new service being called "moogle" i mean what if you wanted to look up info about moogles on google?

      • Re:Moooogle (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Or worse, buy a stuffed moogle doll?

        Can you just imagine somebody saying they're going to froogle moogle on google? It makes the mind boogle.

    • Re:Moooogle (Score:3, Funny)

      by K-Man ( 4117 )
      Yes, here are some real life examples from my inbox. This will be a really useful service.

      Subject: MOV1ES 4 FR33ovol!

      Google: Your search - mov1es 4 fr33ovol! - did not match any documents.

      Suggestions:
      - Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
      - Try different keywords.
      - Try more general keywords.
      - Try fewer keywords.

      -
      Subject: Man hunter from real life

      No man is safe.
      Imagine going about your daily life,
      then out of nowhere you are attacked
      by two of the hottest babez you have
      ever seen, whose only inten

  • Google does it again... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by danielrm26 ( 567852 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:04PM (#8024548) Homepage
    I for one am dumping (or at least sidelining) my other webmail accounts immediately if "googlemail" has the features I need. When is the last time you saw Google down?

    At the moment, they can do little wrong in my eyes, and I thouroughly expect to enjoy anything coming out of their company. I just hope that as they grow into the beast they are sure to become that they don't lose the purity and creativity that sets them apart from the rest.

    Improve your Google efficiency:
    http://www.dmiessler.com/google

    • Actually... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      About 2 months ago I noticed that Google was down for about 3 minutes.

      OMG. I thought that the world was coming to an end.

    • Prepare to be underhwelmed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:26PM (#8024779)
      What is left in webmail? The best Google can do is offermore default space than Yahoo and Hotmail. This will cost them money - Yahoo currently soaks $19 a year out of anyone wanting more than 4 MB. Maybe they can do filtering better, but I don't see them outdoing spamassassin etc. Ultimately its just another email address. The geek cachet will wear off quick after everyone you despise starts using googlemail.
      • Because Google have a great brand for a straightforward trustworthy service. Maybe someone would like to swap their job_bloggs_1897216@hotmail.com address for job_bloggs@googlemail.com.

        The geek cachet will wear off quick after everyone you despise starts using googlemail

        Ah, but how about ...@linux.googlemail.com! And if everyone starts using googlemail, then they have won.

      • Well Actually (Score:3, Informative)

        by Brainiac252 ( 709625 )
        I really think that there is a lot left in webmail besides additional space. I started using a service called Shadango.com [shadango.com] 6 months ago and it easily has more features then my old hotmail account. First of all I can check all my pop/imap accounts there from one easy interface. They provide you with a file manager, disposable addresses, and I have like 20MB of space. It's frickin' great. Yes a lot has been done in email, but there are still a lot of avenues that google can explore.

        I keep seeing tunne

        • Re:Well Actually (Score:5, Interesting)

          by soothsayer491 ( 740216 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:50PM (#8025686)
          I have to say that I used to be a member of this service called Bluebottle, it did everything that shadango does and more....even POP access, then it got abused to no end and now it sucks! But yea so now I'm on the shadango train as well it's solid. Here is what i like:
          • You can check all POP/IMAP accounts from one interface(even yahoo, hotmail, and aol(and they're filtered!))
          • Realtime access to your IMAP accts
          • 20MB of space for each address you have
          • Calender
          • You can make "disposable" addresses
          • The customer service they have is unbeatable...unlike the big corps like yahoo!
          • There's no annoying ads on the site!
          • Lastly, they keep making improvements, very active development

          I just hope that it can stick around and not go down the road that bluebottle did!

          That's my two cents

          Willie

      • Re:Prepare to be underhwelmed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:19PM (#8025338)

        What is left in webmail?

        What was left in search before Google started adding features? Until Google took over the market, people thought that search engines were just about finding relevent stuff and seeing a page full of adverts. Google proved that they could build a less advert-laden page, add features such as caching with keyword highlighting, translation, word/pdf conversion, etc, whilst still remaining lucrative.

        They've revolutionised news aggregation with their automatic classification and sorting. They are the definitive Usenet archive (mostly thanks to their Deja Vu buyout, but still). They have bought out Blogger and will almost certainly move things forward in that respect.

        The question isn't "what can they possibly offer?". The question is "why wouldn't you expect them to excel at this?".

  • Froogle (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rkane ( 465411 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:05PM (#8024550) Homepage Journal
    I don't know about any of you, but "Froogle" hasn't impressed me yet. I am a frequent user of pricewatch [pricewatch.com] and techbargains [techbargains.com], and Froogle hasn't even come close to matching these. Call me old fashioned, but I sincerely hope that google stays away from the portal business.

    • Re:Froogle (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Thrakkerzog ( 7580 )
      why don't you try buying something other than computer hardware or software?

      Froogle has much more than computer stuff.

      • Re:Froogle (Score:2, Insightful)

        by chmod000 ( 123913 )
        Froogle has much more than computer stuff.

        Even on the computer stuff page!

        Found on the CPU [google.com] page: this link. [clubmac.com]

        So what is it really? A pendant PDA?

        Looks like Froogle is at the mercy of the sellers when it comes to the content of those links.

      • Re:Froogle (Score:5, Informative)

        by The Clockwork Troll ( 655321 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:26PM (#8025405) Journal
        why don't you try buying something other than computer hardware or software? Froogle has much more than computer stuff.
        Because it still sucks!

        froogle is generations behind Yahoo! Shopping, pricewatch, shopper.com etc.'s ability to distinguish actual items for sale from reviews, previews, and other non-merchandising content.

        Yet froogle insists on attaching a price to every result returned on a search, often an incorrect one.

        Often times a froogle search will turn up pages of "results," but when you go to sort by price, all of the sudden you wind up with only a handful of listings. In effect their software is saying, "well, I wasn't too sure about some of these."

    • Re:Froogle (Score:5, Informative)

      by RocketScientist ( 15198 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:23PM (#8024744)
      They seem to do a good job with non-computer bits. Look for a set of 6L6 or EL84 tubes, or a Traxxas Nitro Rustler, or an inflatable christmas tree on Techbargains or Pricewatch and you're very likely to be disappointed.

    • Re:Froogle (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lordvdr ( 682194 )
      Let me know when they make "!froogle.google.com" Most of the time I want to search for pages that ARE NOT trying to sell me something.

      -lv

    • Re:Froogle (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dominic_Mazzoni ( 125164 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:26PM (#8025403) Homepage
      I don't know about any of you, but "Froogle" hasn't impressed me yet. I am a frequent user of pricewatch and techbargains, and Froogle hasn't even come close to matching these.

      That's not what Froogle is for. When you know exactly what you want, and want the best possible price, sites like pricewatch, techbargains, mysimon, epinions, etc. are great for this. When you don't know exactly what you want, or don't know what it's called, or don't know what category it would be in, Froogle is excellent.

  • The near future.......? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bc90021 ( 43730 ) * <bc90021 AT bc90021 DOT net> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:05PM (#8024553) Homepage
    You log into your GoogleMail account, and it has emailed you an entire evening's worth of web crawling for the data you were looking for. It's searched for places for your for your next vacation, and has managed to provide you with not only information, but Froogle'd for the best prices too. It's suggested things you'd like to do, and gone out and found the most popular sites about that as well. All you have to do is log into your Google HomePage and accept its suggestions, or negotiate with your own little GoogleBot for other venues.

    Could this be the beginning of intelligent software agents? It would seem that if anyone could bring such a thing to us, it would be the Google folks...
    • Not that they don't have smart folks to come up with ideas too, but I would keep some of these to yourself and consider proposing them to Google. There could be something in it for you. :)
    • Nice dream, but that's not what this is.

    • The likely future... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by blunte ( 183182 )
      might be similar to what you describe, but you left out something important.

      The crawling that was done for you was silently biased toward Google advertising clients.

      And the travel suggestions have been biased toward Google advertising clients.

      Oh, and the Froogle selections also were biased toward paying ad customers.

      Maybe that's all ok (legally and economically), but it's probably not what you would expect, and as such you'll be working from bad data to make your decisions.

    • Re:The near future.......? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:48PM (#8024993) Journal
      The idea of an agent that crawls the net searching for stuff for you is kinda dumb. Google has already done the crawling, and can serve you the results instantly, whenever you want. The biggest problem is *expressing what you're searching for* in terms that a computer can understand. Without a solution to that problem, an intelligent agent can't be any better than a Google search. If that problem is solved, then Google can still serve you results instantly, without any "intelligent agent" crawling the web specifically for you. The intelligence is all in Google's algorithms, and there's no need for any agents.

      To me, the whole idea of intelligent agents sounds too much like Clippy. I don't want software giving me suggestions and telling me what I would like. OTOH, software presenting a list of information that might be useful is OK. It's kind of a psychological thing. Amazon.com doesn't have an "intelligent agent" that tells you what products you would like; instead it has a page with a list of things that are similar or related to products you've shopped for. The end result is the same, and the difference is subtle, but I think it's an important psychological one. The computer shouldn't display intelligence and boss you around; instead it should act like a mechanical device that simply responds to input that you give it. Intelligent agents don't allow you to actually do anything you can't do with passive, subservient software. They're just more obnoxious and annoying.

  • Portals (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FooAtWFU ( 699187 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:06PM (#8024565) Homepage
    So what's wrong if Google becomes a portal? I certainly see enough people complaining about it. As long as the search engine still works pretty well...
    As for "locking in" users, I would hardly compare this to the wonderful lock-in schemes we've seen out of Redmond.
    Google email... would that mean that they parse my text and attach a keyword-based ad to it? :)

    • Re:Portals (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:20PM (#8024721) Homepage
      My answer to this is

      (1) I don't want a portal.
      (2) Historically, when search services become portals, their search services suffer as a result, or else try to force you to jump over all their portal "features" to use the search features you came to use.
      (3) I have multiple times in the past found myself having to stop using a search engine (for example, altavista) because they just couldn't keep their frigging portal-ness out of my face.

      If google added portal features, I'd be OK with that as long as I could just keep using the search and not have to think about their portal. However I just have trouble trust that anyone, even google, could start "being a portal" and yet not have their core service lose focus or otherwise suffer as a result.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:06PM (#8024570)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Agreed. The recent trend you mention is most certainly a plague in the Google world. My search results have been contaminated with all sorts of advertisements and E-Bay links posing as potentially worthwhile.
    • I was just thinking the same thing. Google is a search engine company, why not just concentrate on improving what they do best.

      Maybe it's time to start looking elsewhere. I like the idea of Nutch [nutch.org] the effort to implement an open-source web search engine.

    • Re:Oy. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:23PM (#8024752) Journal
      Remember when yahoo! had a useful catalog of sites? Remember when their search/catalog started sucking? remember when they added featres like email, new, stock quotes, chat, etc?

      Remember when google had a useful search engine....

      • Remember when yahoo! had a useful catalog of sites? Remember when their search/catalog started sucking? remember when they added featres like email, new, stock quotes, chat, etc?

        I do remember, and I don't miss their search feature... but I DO love (!) a lot of their other features. Their start page (My Yahoo!) brings everything together and lets me customize it to have use and value to me rather than just force content down my throat (MSN).

        I pay for Yahoo! Mail and love it. I use Yahoo! Finance all

        • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:18PM (#8025326)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Oy. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by unother ( 712929 )

          Moreover, Yahoo! was only a useful "catalog of sites" because that was early days on the web.

          Yes, Yahoo! implemented searching as well, but a million years ago, it was self-registration that created that "catalog of sites" (e.g. 1995). Searching came later, and was organic, but Yahoo! in no way was ever the dominant search engine, certainly not in the way Google has become. They were a directory service initially, and thus becoming a "Portal" as they are today was the direct evolution upward from that mo

    • Yeah.. every time I search for somethink like "Erin Gray Naked", I get all these cheesy fake celebrity pr0n sites that all _eventually_ wind up a Mr. Skin!

      WTF google? I need better obscure 70s TV start naked searches!

    • Re:Oy. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ahdeoz ( 714773 )
      Google is suffering from the theoretical Linux virus problem. While it actually *is* more resistant to abuse than other systems, it is not invulnerable. In fact, the main reason that Google (in the past) returned better search results than other sites, is because the abusers were targeting Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, Altavista, or whatever. Also, there were fewer of them. The only way to overcome the search abuse will be to become an underdog with a new algorithm who the abusers are *not* targeting

    • Re:Oy. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 40000 ( 445957 )
      Make the search more useful with selectable result weightings based on
      a)E-commerce type code - gets rid of amazon referral sites
      b)Use of the copyright symbol - brings personal web pages to the top of the list
      c)Too many links - mods down dodgy portals
      d)Size of text blocks on page (would be in favour of an e-book)
      Ultimately some kind of 'personality' rating for web pages.

    • Real world example of Google suckage (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DeadSea ( 69598 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @07:24PM (#8026004) Homepage Journal
      I did this search about a month ago, reported the results to Google and it still sucks donkey balls:

      Google Search: "monty python" "usage of fuck" [google.com]

      Yes it is a "porny" search term, but the site that has listing 1-300 demonstrates that it is possible (and easy) to really truly spam google.

      It looks like some enterprising young porn pusher, has made a page generator. They put very similar pages on a variety of porny domain names then linked them all together. Google sucks it in and slurps it up like you wouldn't believe.

    • Re:Oy. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by instarx ( 615765 ) on Tuesday January 20, 2004 @02:11AM (#8029152)
      I agree. Google results are becoming more and more irrelevant, with the first page of hits being taken up by a few major eCommerce organizations. This is mostly the result of abuse by a few companies working the Google algorithms since most of the ads are really for the same service, just using different web pages linked to each other. There must be a term for this but I don't know it.

      I am very tired of clicking link after link that purport to have reviews of what I am looking for only to discover it has nothing of the sort and is just another version of Amazon, Nextag, OneCall or Yahoo or with exactly the same information. It particularly irks me to be tricked to a site that that claims a "Review of Acme Rocket Launcher" that just says, "Sorry there are no reviews of Acme Rocket Launcher submit your review here, but get best price for Acme Rocket Launcher here."

      No, Google doesn't do everything perfectly by a long shot.

      • Re:Oy. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by minus28 ( 695222 )
        Searching from within Europe, one of the worst perpetrators for this is kelkoo, which offers price comparisons for an item, between different sites (and it usually does have prices which are amongst the cheapest, so can be useful). However Kelkoo will regularly appear in the first ten listings, often several times- then as you say, have no actual links to the product you are looking for, therefore in this case you cant buy it from a partner anyway!! A total waste of everyones time.
  • unless google has something innovative up their sleeve, i urge them to avoid making the standard portal play. look where yahoo is today. google has an amazing brand and great technology - they should leverage these resources when they think of something truly innovative....

  • Keep the Look (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Saige ( 53303 ) <evil.angelaNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:07PM (#8024578) Journal
    As far as I am concerned, they can start offering e-mail, or whatever. They can become as much of a portal as they want.

    Just don't destroy the simplicity of their search engine's front page by tacking on all sorts of ads and images and text. The bare-bones website they offer up for searches is so much more efficient and, I feel, better for serving the purpose of what Google primarily is - a high quality search engine.

    If they start tacking all sorts of crap to it, they'll become just like everyone else, and lose their uniqueness. It'll still be a high quality search engine, but without stand-out packaging.

  • Google AdSense and e-mail (Score:3, Informative)

    by glinden ( 56181 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:07PM (#8024585) Homepage Journal
    Google's AdSense [google.com] program, which allows you to get paid for ads on your website, explicitly prohibits [google.com] using it in e-mail, but it may not be a big deal to start allowing that. Seems like just releasing that restriction and a little work for targeting of ads to e-mails instead of websites would mean that Google's advertising system could be applied to e-mail.

  • Google continues to expand their services but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HMA2000 ( 728266 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:08PM (#8024594)
    Is it just me or does it seem like google is getting further and further away from what they are good at (excellent search results) and closer and closer to a Yahoo type service?

    I am sure the money must be great for introducing services like these but aren't they canabalizing their value by introducing these new services while at the same time polluting their search results?

  • Thus it begins (Score:5, Funny)

    by UberOogie ( 464002 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:08PM (#8024599)
    1) Web-based company? Check.
    2) Do one thing incredibly well? Check.
    3) Do one thing so well you got MS nervous? Check.
    4) Slowly expanding offerings that move more and more away from core competancy? Check.
    5) Try and become everything for everyone? Check.
    6) Spiral and burn?

    The pencil is poised. I hope to god its not true.

    • Re:Thus it begins (Score:5, Insightful)

      by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:19PM (#8024714) Homepage
      Exactly my fear.

      Google has done it's one thing so well, they should just be happy with it.

      If they feel the need to go portal ( and let me just say "#1 fucking retarded idea of the year...but whatever" ), they should launch an entirely different site ( and company, preferrably ).

      If they feel the need to do so, add shit like "From the makers of Google!"
    • Someone better is almost certainly out there waiting to be noticed. When Google starts to suck, that better search engine might get its chance.

  • Wild Speculation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sithkhan ( 536425 ) <sithkhan@gmail.com> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:09PM (#8024602)
    Isn't this a perfect time for Google to announce such a common, easily identifible service as this than at this particular juncture? How better to prepare the investing world to sell this upcoming IPO to Main Street Techno-Neophyte Investors than to say that Google is expanding, and that they even have email services ... Plus, think about those eyeballs that will be locked into those browser-based email pages, and all the ad space that comes with them. I am a cynic, but that's just me. I'll still sign up for the service!

  • Free? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by vpscolo ( 737900 )
    You have to wonder who google is going to get people into this. Will it be the traditional yahoo/hotmail approach where you get 5MB free and then upgrade, or prehaps they will just go fora decent free emails service ala normal ISP. Intresting to see how they make money

    Rus

  • Then again... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by loserbert ( 697119 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:10PM (#8024613) Homepage
    ...all of this could be driven by the fact that they are working on an IPO.

    They may be the kindest, gentlest search engine and downright good people, but cash is cash. Everybody wants more. More features means more users means more money.

  • Google needs help (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DRue ( 152413 ) <drue@@@therub...org> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:10PM (#8024619) Homepage
    Google is still on top of the market. But, more and more often I am getting bad results from a search. By bad results I mean that instead of getting the best site, I get the most commercial site.

    I would really like google to get a feature that instead of listing the name and summary of a web page, lists JUST the domains of returned results. i.e. if I search for "mp3 player", i get back
    www.apple.com
    www.rio.com
    www.othermp3play er.com

    --- not buying google IPO

    • Re:Google needs help (Score:3, Informative)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      well doing one for own use wouldn't be that hard.. with googleapi it would be quite easy to do a page for your own use that only did that(just showed the domain names). that's one nice thing about google..

    • Re:Google needs help (Score:2, Interesting)

      by mopslik ( 688435 )

      ...instead of getting the best site, I get the most commercial site... i.e. if I search for "mp3 player" ...

      The problem with this example, of course, is that the context is rather difficult to discern. Are most web surfers looking for a review of a certain MP3 player, or are they looking for a cheap online store to snag an easy Xmas gift? Both contexts would demand two different sets of search results.

      To find reviews and datasheets (or other non-commercial pages), it's pretty much necessary to add +re

  • Just because it's Google doesn't mean it's going to be good. Froogle hasn't impressed me at all. Dealing with Usenet used to be much better under Dejanews. Unless they can offer better spam filters that Yahoo, I'm not switching.

  • Google-powered spam filtering? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by richard_za ( 236823 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:11PM (#8024625) Homepage Journal
    The guys are at Google are so innovative [google.com], I'm sure they could come up with some spam filtering technology. They could leverage info from their USENET archive [google.com] or the web.

  • Lock (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CGP314 ( 672613 ) <CGP@ColinGregor y P a lmer.net> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:12PM (#8024637) Homepage
    I'm sure Google is getting more and more concerned about locking in users

    It's only a lockin if the users want to leave but can't. Google has a good history with users, I wouldn't expect them to do any less with a mail client.


    --
    In London? Need a Physics Tutor? [colingregorypalmer.net]

    American Weblog in London [colingregorypalmer.net]

  • Two Words.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonimo Covarde ( 669695 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:12PM (#8024638)
    Embrace and extend.

  • less on the actual web serving? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheCoop1984 ( 704458 ) <thecoop @ r u n box.com> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:12PM (#8024641)
    it seems to me that the more google branches out into these extra services the more the only reason for google's success - the web searching - will be lost and ignored. I really hope google doesnt become like www.yahoo.com, which is simply an eyesore and completely useless as it tries to do too much...
  • wonder if they are planning on making any of these announcements around the same time they hit the stock market. Might just make them even more money.
  • Think of it. Every spam you get from here on in would be laced with links to their own viagra, herbal diet products & work from home options. The real spammers would never have a chance.

  • Anyone else having trouble with google? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Denver_80203 ( 570689 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:13PM (#8024653)
    Seems like in the last few months, Google searches have turned up other "search engines" as a top result or 4 out of the top 5. So, as an example, I search for "foo" and most of the top results lead me to another (crappy) google like site with it's own results for "foo". The feeling I get from those sites is similiar to those crappy sites you end up on when mis-spelling a URL.

  • I would like a Journal tab in Google. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by F34nor ( 321515 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:14PM (#8024667)
    Wouldn't it be great if you could use Google to search full text all the refereed scientific journals?

    That would make the internet into what it was made for, free open exchange of scientific work.

    A LexusNexus Tab would kick ass to but might be a little pricey.

  • Groups (Score:2, Informative)

    by FooAtWFU ( 699187 )
    However, since it opened in 1998, Google has added portal-style discussion groups and is testing a comparison shopping site called Froogle, as well as a news site.

    Is that really a "discussion groups" section as much as Google's newsgroup browser? It's not really a Google service as much as a Google interface to a web-wide service.

  • This is no surprise (Score:5, Funny)

    by dmoore ( 2449 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:20PM (#8024720)
    According to the law of software envelopment [jwz.org]:
    Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

  • Email was inevitable for Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:21PM (#8024732)
    Ultimately this is the only long-term sticky application on the web. This is true for Microsoft and Yahoo, who leverage entire networks of services based on the id people initially used to get their email.

    What is sad is that most useful email addresses @google.com will be swallowed up within ten minutes of the service going live, so you'll be back to charlie055539833 or cooldude1975 as your userid there too.

    Get used to Google losing its agnostic stance after it goes public. Stop thinking of Google as a round-about and more as a parking lot.

  • People stick with the service they're used to. I don't see any other search engine replacing Google as the leader anytime soon. I don't see any instant messaging program outdoing AIM (which is significant because it means most of the people I know use AIM). I don't see any free email service being larger than Hotmail anytime soon (despite how yahoomail may try).

    Call me cynical I guess...

  • Bad move (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Krafty Koder ( 697396 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:26PM (#8024783)
    it's a bad bad move on google's part. The infrastructure needed (and the sysadmin) to provide a robust, spam-free , web based email system is of a sheer magnitude greater than just being pure search.
    For starters , the tech support will ramp up ,and add to google's costs. And Googlemail will become the numero uno target for spammers.
    If I were the Google founders, I quite honestly wouldn't bother - it's to much hassle and dilutes the Google "brand".
    But then again, the IPO is coming up, so having a "webmail" component is an easy sell to "analysts" in Five Points ...ahem... Wall Street I mean.

  • Pipe dream "what if": (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:29PM (#8024819) Homepage
    What would be interesting is if what Google did was release spam blocking software.

    It seems to me that blocking spam, and weeding out google-exploit spam search results, are the same sort of text processing / arms race sort of problem. Research on the latter, which is what Google is working on right now, will probably lead to techniques helpful in the former. So if they're looking at expanding into email, it seems like that would be a likely area for them to expand into...

    Of course, given, they aren't right now doing a good JOB of filtering out the google-exploit spam results, but I expect they'll unveil some kind of brandnamed technology attempting to deal with the problem sometime shortly before MSN's search engine is released...

    I just hope if they offer email addresses, they offer some, you know, better domans. I'm sorry, I don't want to be "mcc@google.com".

  • This Does Not Mean Google Is Becoming A Portal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reidbold ( 55120 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:31PM (#8024840)
    Go to google.com, then go to yahoo.com (if you're using a good browser, view them in tabs side by side). You'll notice Google has their search bar prominently in the middle of the page, surrounded by 13 links, 4 of them are for searching, 1 for the news service, 3 setup options. Also, out of the way at the bottom are links to info about the company.

    Now look at yahoo, the search bar is at the top (good) but there are probably over 100 links to all of the various parts of yahoo arranged in a, *gasp*, portal like fashion.

    It seems obvious that for google, searching remains job 1, while for yahoo, searching competes with the dozen other features they offer.

  • End of Google? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:33PM (#8024858)
    I think that just about time Google goes IPO, it will be just a footnote in the history of the internet.

    Already, google search results are MUCH WORSE than they were just a few months ago. There is so much fake ranking trickery and strange re-ranking changes on google's part that the results are nearly useless for many searches.

    It's a real opening for competing search engines now that Google has taken their eys off the ball and they are wasting money playing with Froogle and news.google.com

    These guys are so impressed with themselves that they are going to be very suprised when they have no money left, or worse, they are forced by their IPO backers to start even more foolish online projects -- iTunes powered by Google anyone?

  • free million dollar idea for google... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:36PM (#8024877)
    offer porn. you could call it 'ogle'

  • Even better... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Poulpy ( 698167 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:37PM (#8024886)
    ... they also registered the following domain names:
    googleporn.com [whois.org]
    googlesucks.com [whois.org]

    Can we expect better content from Google soon?

    More seriously, when they register domain names, I believe it's more to prevent abuses than anything else...
    There are more than 1800 domain names registered [whois.org] containing the google keyword.

  • Me@google.com (Score:5, Informative)

    by shubert1966 ( 739403 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:40PM (#8024920) Journal
    I found a cool List of Google Features [freepint.com] that you may or may no be aware of. Check it out.

    I have never had anything but praise for Google. The "Less is More" design was an oasis compared to other yahoos. However, I have always had a Yahoo account because it is free. I'll jump to google in a heartbeat ~ as long as it's free.

    Google has created more innovative search features than anyone. And they just keep doing it. People have discussed the impending or eventual doom because of new offerings from MS and Yahoo, but the mindshare is with Google and the service just rocks/folks!

    I have only 1 suggestiong for Google, and that is to let me up the number results returned to 250 or 500. Other than that, I'm on the bandwagon!

  • Googlemail.com (Score:5, Informative)

    by NemosomeN ( 670035 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:47PM (#8024988) Journal
    http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/114712. htm Possibly the REAL reason they registered it... --Proudly not RTFA'ing since 1999

  • On second thought... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MissMarvel ( 723385 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:54PM (#8025063) Journal
    ... maybe trying to do more is a bad thing. Diversity breeds excellence. To site the rather colorful discussion on yesterdays thread... Women love to shop. Alas, it is true! Wouldn't it be awful is there was only one manufacturer of women's clothing? Talk about cramping our style!

    So Google... stick with what you do best and just keep improving it. It's better to do one thing well than to do several things mediocre.
  • This means they'll have to pay SCO even more money! How will SCO keep up with all this burgeoning Linux progress? It must be simply overwhelming having to retract and re-write all those low-level blackmail letters. (grin)

  • Of course... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by skzbass ( 719269 )
    there's the timeless classic of when you do a "i'm feeling lucky" of "miserable failure".

  • GoogleMail (Score:3, Interesting)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:24PM (#8025393)
    is already in use, albeit in a different form, than a regular email service.

    CapeScience [capeclear.com] built an email interface to the search engine. Send an email, get your Google search results back via email. Lots of places [google.com] around are calling it GoogleMail

  • Google's offer is no suprise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gen2002 ( 680844 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:43PM (#8025599)
    To me , The fact that google provides an E-mail service isn't a suprise but a natural step of evulotion as a great search engine.
    Most search engines such as Lycos , Yahoo and Excite started offering E-mail service when they reached certain size. Actually I think that it was just before thier IPO . So Google actualy walking in the step of its formers.

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