I got a Gmailaccount pretty soon after it went open beta. I tinkered with it some then, wowed at the coolness of good DHTML + Javascript, and thought about how coolio it would be to have Google-esque search features available for ones email — in addition to web-mail (available anywhere with a web connection) with 1 GB of space behind it.

For free.

It would seem that Gmail now has enough features for me to finally switch to it as my primary web app, and selectively forward my other addresses to it. My pobox.com address I’ll be hanging on to for sure, since the whole point of establishing it was so that mah peeps didn’t have to keep updating their addresses for me — so it’ll continue to be my primary address, and will just forward to Gmail for now. In fact, any emails sent from Gmail will use the pobox address as the reply-to, so all my less-computer-savvy family won’t be calling me asking about the different email address that I replied to them with, and if they need to worry about updating their address books :)

Things I most like (at this stage):

  • The “lightweight” feel of the interface.
  • The fact that I don’t define folders, but labels, for message sorting.
  • That I don’t have to rely on my own organization approach to be able to go back and find old emails, but can just use Google’s search technology to root out whatever email I’m after, rather than trying to remember where I filed it.

Sorry this turned into such a commercial …but there it is.

I have 6 account invites at my disposal if you don’t yet have a Gmail account — if you would like an account, post a comment saying so.