going gaa-gaa over google email

apology to all gmail lovers… this is a grumbling of a non gmail lover.

the god of email???

oh enough already!! gmail! gmail!l gmail! everywhere i go – blogs and forums – people were talking about gmail. i noticed many bloggers like huai bin, oliviasy, meesh, sashi, ash, etc, etc, etc,. had set up contests for those who wants gmail. and we also heard of gmail going to ebay, selling as much as US$125!! gosh! are people that desperate to grab hold of gmail??

i’m so fed up already reading about people raving about gmail and about people offering to give away gmail via contests like unscrambling words, writing slogans, etc, etc, etc.

why all the fuss over gmail? the first attraction is the 1GB of storage space for mails, i suppose. then comes the ‘brand name’. it’s from google, folks, the no. 1 search engine in the WWW that is so very popular and makes so much money.

everyone seems to want to own a gmail… why? well… because everyone seems to have one! … because it is new! it’s like the ‘in’ thing now to own gmail… the cool thing. everybody has one, so must you. the kiasu syndrome, see.

apart from the 1GB storage space and the brand name, i guess the interface also attract people… cool, fast, user-friendly, easy-to-handle interface. but i wouldn’t know how fantastic fantastic the interface is or what other marvellous features it has (like no adverts?) as don’t use gmail. well i do have one, as being an active blogspot user, i can sign up for gmail automatically. yes, i signed up of course but then i don’t use it. ok maybe i’m kiasu too… signed up just to be able to say i have gmail too. my gmail is lucial@gmail.com, btw. (oh, don’t send mails there please.)

i’m not interested in gmail because:

– it is new (and beta version, mind you), that’s why you see so many people raving about it. also i feel that being new, you tend to love it, find everything good about it… wait till gmail is as old as hotmail or yahoo… then you might grumble about this and that of gmail.

– i’m not interested in the 1GB mail storage space. 1GB? that much? why, i won’t even be using half 1/4 of it. what for do i need to store/keep so many mails for? hotmail of 10MB is already enough for me! yeah yeah i know, my needs are not the same as others. others might need lots of space to store all the xxx pics they have. 🙂

– it is web-based! i need to be online to read and compose! argh! money money rolling away as i used gmail!

– too many people are using it. why should i use it just because many people are using it? why should i be among the many thousands of ordinary normal people using gmail?

– if i were to adopt gmail as my email, i’ll have to change my namecard since my namecard already has my hotmail and jaring emails.

– i already have 5 email accounts: hotmail, yahoo, jaring, tm.net and flashmail. the last, flashmail is both web-based and pop-based. this i like as can read/compose off line. softhome is also like flashmai, both web-based and pop-based.

yahoo mail now offers 100 MB of storage… which is just nice for me. i have yahoo mail but i use it for myself only (with a different name!) whereas for hotmail, i use it for friends or to put it up on the web. i prefer yahoo over hotmail for two reasons – the junk folder in yahoo does not add up to the mail storage space limit, whereas hotmail junk do add up to it. this means i have to constantly empty the junk box from hotmail whereas i don’t have to do it in yahoo. also in yahoo, it’s so easy to set up as many as possible other mails, including pop-based mails for checking.

few days ago, LcF had blogged on another mail, reddiffmail that also offer 1GB of storage. why don’t you guys give it a try? and do you know at one time there was this aventuremail that offers 2GB of storage! yes, that’s right, 2GB mind you. unfortunately it has closed its door for registration. a friend of mine did manage to sign up for it when he first heard of it.

coming back to gmail, do you know there is even a gmail swap site? as if that is not enough, there is also a gmail for troop website. what next, i wonder.

oh having sign up for gmail, naturally i have 3 gmail invites to be given away. give away my gmail invites via a contest? no way! not on my life!! so what i can do is simply give it away free… just like that, without anything in return. well, since huai bin of sixseal was the only one who wrote to me… twice in fact, once to my hotmail and second time to my gmail to ask for the gmail account, i reply to him i’ll gladly give him all the 3… with absolutely nothing in return! i find it amusing when he asked “what do you want in return?” huh? to me, gmail is not the email god, therefore i don’t expect anything in return if i give it away. oh dear, speaking of which, i have to go and log in my gmail account now to check his reply. oh, and for those who are so crazy over gmail, pray that i might get more invites to be given away, so that i can give them away to you with no strings attached!