Gmail Is Wonderful

Google's web mail "Gmail" has become my favorite mailer. I really like how Gmail works -- it makes my life easier, and breaks away from the file/folder hegemony we've suffered through since the '80s.

In essence, Gmail messages are categorized via labels, either by rules/filters or by manual action. From then on, messages are aggregated based on your personal labels instead of some physical location such as a folder. Moreover, a message can be denoted by multiple labels so it can be reached via alternate routes -- not just one place for ambiguous things (with traditional mailers, where do you file items related to "computer communications" ... with computers or with networks?). Plus, as you'd expect with Google, the searching is speedy and excellent. Want to find all messages about the "hydrogen economy" or instead about "whippets"? Just search for them. Want do find those people who communicate about "hydrogen economy" AND "basenjis" ... just search for it, and if that's in your messages, it'll become quickly evident.

Yes, I'm aware of the critisms regarding privacy, ad placement, big brother, perpetual text, and so on, but deep thinking reveals that's all myopic nonsense. While those things are mostly true, they're not unique to Google, so why single them out from Y!, $quish, AOL, or your own ISP? Privacy on the web is an oxymoron, save encrypting everything (Get my PGP key if needed from my personal page).

There's much more to Gmail, but that's a start. It took me a while to become accoustomed to working with labels and categories instead of folders and locations, and to find things by searching instead of index listings, but now that it's familiar, there's no way I'd want to give it up. Gmail is an out-of-the-park homerun in my book.