SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved pranks so much that shortly after founding the company more than a quarter-century ago, they started rolling out wild ideas every April Fool’s Day. . 1 year, Google Job information has been posted For the Lunar Copernicus Research Center.Another year, the company said. The plan was to develop “scratch and sniff” Search engine functionality.
The jokes were so consistently over the top that people learned to laugh at it as yet another example of Google’s pranks. That’s why Page and Brin decided to do something on April Fool’s Day that no one would have been able to do 20 years ago.
it was G-maila free service boasting 1 GB of storage The amount per account is an amount that sounds almost mundane in the age of 1 terabyte iPhones. However, the capacity of email at the time was sufficient to store approximately 13,500 emails before running out of space, compared to only 30 to 300 for the major webmail services of the time operated by Yahoo and Microsoft. It seemed like I could only save 60 emails. This means a 250-500x increase in email storage space.
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In addition to breakthroughs in storage, G-mail It also includes Google’s search technology, making it easy for users to retrieve information from old emails, photos, and other personal information stored on the service. Also, series of communications on the same topic are automatically threaded, so they all flow together as if they were one conversation.
“The initial pitch we put together was about the three S’s: storage, search, and speed,” says Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive who worked on the design. G-mail and other company products, and later became CEO of Yahoo.
It was such a daunting concept that the Associated Press published an article shortly afterward: G-mail Late in the afternoon on April Fool’s Day in 2004, readers began calling and emailing news organizations to let them know they had been fooled by Google pranksters.
“That’s part of the appeal is that we make a product that people won’t believe is real. It’s changed people’s perception of the kinds of applications that are possible within a web browser,” said the former Google engineer. Paul Buchheit recalled his development efforts in a recent interview with The Associated Press. G-mail.
The piece took three years to complete as part of a project called “Caribou,” which references a gag from the Dilbert cartoons. “There’s something ridiculous about the name Caribou that made me laugh,” said Buchheit, the 23rd person hired by the company, which now employs more than 180,000 people.
The Associated Press knew Google wasn’t kidding G-mail Because an Associated Press reporter was suddenly asked to come from San Francisco to the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to see something worth the trip.
After arriving at the developing corporate campus that would soon become known as the “Googleplex,” an Associated Press reporter was ushered into a small office where Mr. Page sat in front of a laptop computer with a mischievous grin on his face. It was floating.
Page, then only 31, showed off Gmail’s sleek inbox design and demonstrated how fast Gmail ran inside Microsoft’s now-defunct Explorer web browser. And he pointed out that there is no delete button in the main his control window. G-mail It had a lot of storage so it was easy to search. “I think people are going to really like this,” Page predicted.
As with so many things, Page was right. G-mail There are currently an estimated 1.8 billion active accounts, each offering 15 gigabytes of free storage bundled with Google Photos and Google Drive. Even though this is 15x more storage, G-mail The initially provided service is still not sufficient for many users who rarely feel the need to delete their accounts, as Google hopes.
As emails, photos, and other content are stored digitally, Google, Apple, and other companies now make money by selling additional storage capacity in their data centers. (Google charges from $30 per year for 200 gigabytes of storage to $250 per year for 5 terabytes of storage). Gmail’s existence is also the reason why other free email services and the internal email accounts employees use for work now offer far more storage than anyone expected 20 years ago.
“We were trying to change the way people think, because for so long people have been working in this model of storage starvation, where deletion has become the default action,” Buchheit said.
G-mail While serving as the first building block to expand Google’s Internet empire beyond its still-dominant search engine, it was a game-changer in several other ways.
rear G-mail Google Maps and Google Docs now come with word processing and spreadsheet applications. Later, the video site YouTube was acquired, followed by the introduction of the Chrome browser and the Android operating system that powers most smartphones around the world. With Gmail’s clear intent to scan the content of emails to better understand users’ interests, Google also plans to expand its digital surveillance ambitions to sell more advertising. There was little doubt that it was part of the.
Although it quickly became a hot topic, G-mail Google initially started with limited scope, as it only had enough computing power to support a small number of users.
“When we started, we only had 300 machines. They were really old machines and no one wanted them,” Buchheit said with a laugh. “We only had enough capacity to accommodate 10,000 users, which is a little absurd.”
However, its rarity created an atmosphere of exclusivity around it. G-mail That sparked a frenzy of demand for the elusive invitation to sign up. At some point, G-mail The accounts were sold on eBay for $250 each. “It becomes like a social currency and people say, ‘Hey, I got this.’ G-mail Please invite me, do you want it? ” Buchheit said.
Despite being registered in G-mail As Google’s massive network of data centers came online, email services became increasingly accessible, but the company did not offer all electronic services until 2007, when it opened the floodgates to the world as a Valentine’s Day gift. I didn’t start accepting email services.
A few weeks later, on April Fool’s Day 2007, Google announced a new feature called “.G-mail “Paper” offers users the opportunity to have Google print an email archive about “94% Organic Soybeans.” sputum ” and have it sent to the post office. Google was really joking back then.
Reporting errors via editorial policy
