A mercifully very short entry on the Google IPO

Many people know I have significant ties with Google; I use AdWords personally and for my clients, I use AdSense on my own Web sites (including this one), and I have many friends who are Googlers. I am hardly an impartial observer.



I also know that this dang Google IPO has been covered ad naseum. So while I feel compelled to say something here, I'll keep it blissfully short:



Google is an honorable company, with good people (execs and all) that I believe really do want to make the world a better place. I hope they continue to succeed in every way.

(non) sexual healin'

As many folks know, I'm a Lindy Hop (swing dancing) addict, as evidenced by my creation of the Lindy Hop Whiteboard Supreme, and my dance entries in this blog.



Every once in a while, especially on 'off' nights, I ask myself why I continue to dance for hours every week, and what Lindy Hop really means to me.

Over the past three years of my dance life, my friends and I have come up with a number of theories:



- It's the music.

IMHO, not liking swing music is sort of like not liking ice cream. I suppose there are a few weirdos out there that fall into either group, but on the whole, most people I know enjoy a strikingly similar feeling of joy when they listen to the playful energy of swing or indulge in the creamy goodness of ice cream.



- It's the endorphins.

Lindy Hop is very often exuberant and energetic. It burns calories, it makes you sweat, and -- like any exercise -- undoubtedly contributes to one's supply of happy-making endorphins.



- It's the socializing.

Lindy Hop, more than pretty much any other dance I've seen or dabbled in, is a supremely social dance. It's infused with connection and conversation, on and off the dance floor, and while the scene has a surprising mix of extroverts AND introverts, it's generally a wonderful hobby to meet and get to know other people.



- It's the sex.

What happens when you get a bunch of young and young-at-heart energetic, playful people with skillful body movement talents in close proximity? Yep, there's definitely some horizontal hula'ing going on. And, ahem, I'm not gonna argue with the rightly and widely held belief that dancers make better lovers ;-)



* * *



All of that makes enough sense, eh? But there's something more, something that I didn't even think about until last night when I was having a delightful and comfortable dance with a warm and talented follow.



I learned that she's in graduate school, studying psychology, and specifically an area of psychology that involves the science of touch. And we're not talking sexual touch here, either, but rather the sort of nurturing and essential touching that scientific studies have proven contributes to babies' well-being... and that common sense suggests provides healing and happiness to the rest of us.



* * *



It was then that I realized how much the whole concept of touch means to me and likely many of my Lindy Hop crazy friends. There's such a comfort and warmth in -- if you'll forgive the modified Moulin Rouge reference -- holding someone and being held in return.



At least in my case (and I suspect, for most others as well), this is all not really about sex or even necessarily flirting. As a heterosexual fella, I still enjoy hugging my friends regardless of their gender, and I likewise appreciate being a follower in Lindy Hop, even with guys.



Sure, there's sometimes an underlying sensuality in dancing, especially when blues-dancing with someone you are attracted to from the way they look or the way they dance, and so on. But I still think that the overall non-sexual pleasure of touch is one of the leading factors that contributes to folks' joy in dancing, and this also highlights just how much closeness our American society often lacks.



In much of Europe and Latin America, for instance, there seems to be less perceived overlap between friendly touching and sexual overtures, and I really like and respect that. When I lived in Europe, I found that I was encouraged to give and receive friendly hugs or even snuggle with others without ulterior motives or expectations. In contrast, most of American culture seems to be plagued with an unhealthy puritanical virgin/whore dichotomy, whereby you're either friends (shaking hands) or you're sleeping together / wanting to sleep together.



* * *



Lindy Hop, then, serves as a welcome respite... friendly and tactile and accepting, with sex as a possibility but not a given or an endgame. And while I can understand being accused of hyperbole, I honestly believe that if there were more communities like this and more touching in this manner, the world would be a more peaceful and productive place.



* * *



Added on 4/30/2004:

I just realized that my last few entries in the Dancing category of this blog have mentioned sex, which somewhat embarrassingly contrasts with the key point of my entry above. Ahem. Um... perhaps I'm a blog marketing whore? ;-) Or, more seriously, in some cases I have indeed linked dancing to sex metaphorically because there are some similarities... and it also conveys some key ideas in ways non-dancers can understand. I hope you still respect me :D



Edited on 6/2/2007:

Updated / removed no-longer-live URLs

The beauty of capoeira

After attending a Best of Brazil evening here in San Francisco featuring the Brazillian art of Capoeira, I'm in a bit of a quandry. I don't want to sound like a marketing brochure, but I can't help but describe what I saw with a series of glowing adjectives: beautiful, flowing, passionate, strong, sensual, mesmerizing. I now have even more admiration for this talented capoeirista and photoblogger.



UPDATE: I've now posted lots and lots of photos from this Capoeira evening :-)

The Internet really is global (or: "I'm a Genius in France")

I've been a geek for as long as I can remember. But I still am amazed and amused to learn just how the Internet shrinks the world... especially nowadays with blogging. I've been hit on by seemingly random women from various locales that I can barely pronounce, gotten warm kudos from Sweden, been rediscovered by an old high school friend in a sleepy town in S. California, and even gotten job interviews from this humble blog.



Blah blah blah... but what still really gets me excited is seeing my stuff translated into other languages! :-)

Not only has one of my (very old) Usenet humor postings been translated into Spanish (darn, can't find the link at the moment), but I just happened to notice that I'm now a minor celebrity in a French paper or online periodical of some sort.



I've had my blog entries linked to from other blogs all around the world, but this is the first time I know of that one of my blog-moments has been written about in another language.



So what if the most recent 'fame' translates into something like this:

Blogger Adam Lasnik, a legend in his own mind, is a typical example of the pig-headed Americans who think our Notre Dame was named after a middling U.S. football team...

Okay, so I jest. In reality, the article makes reference to my earlier blogged comments about how I -- as one of the 'first' (?!) Gmail testers -- perceived the ads to be barely noticeable and hardly intrusive.



I know, I know, it's silly getting all excited about this simple and brief mention. But to me it symbolizes the impact that even us non-nude/non-sexy/non-politics-spouting/non-A-lister bloggers can have in the world. And that makes me happy. :-)

Gmail's not the problem: A look at misguided and dangerous privacy positioning

HARK! A powerful new technology! Let's [try it / ignore it / ban it]!

History repeats itself. When new technology is developed, there are the early adopters who coo excitedly, those living under a rock who grunt "huh?" and varying degrees of those who issue warnings, which -- at least as of late -- seem to fit into one of several convenient categories:

1) Fighting against terrorism

2) Safeguarding values (e.g., "Protecting the children!")

3) Protecting privacy



To simultaneously save me from getting writer's cramp and enable you to finish reading this essay in under two hours, I'm just going to tackle the issue of privacy for now.



* * *

Examining privacy

First, let's take into consideration the two fundamental aspects of privacy:



1) SECLUSION: Right to be left alone; protection from intrusion, interruption, etc.

2) SECRECY: Right to keep one's personal life from prying eyes



Much ado has been made of Gmail's alleged or potential violations of both types of privacy by other individuals (advertisers, hackers, employees) or entities (Google, other companies, government agencies). And admittedly, with seemingly so many potential loci for abuse, it's understandable that many folks are concerned about a project of the scope of something like Gmail.



However, in this essay, I'd like to offer my opinions as to why these risks are outweighed by benefits and -- more importantly -- why focusing on 'reforming' (or even suspending) Gmail harmfully takes our eye off the real problems in our society.



* * *

Assessing privacy issues in the context of Gmail

It's easiest to dispense immediately with the 'right to be left alone' aspect of Gmail. Unlike the flashy, gaudy, intelligence-insulting "You're winner number 314159!" pop-ups that pollute leading Web mail services (and much of the rest of the Web), Gmail's ads are deliciously unobtrusive. They don't blink, they don't flash, they just sit there quietly on the side -- barely noticeable. And since Gmail does not insert so much as a tag line (much less ads) in any outgoing mails, it becomes even more difficult to forward an argument that Gmail creates an interruption or other intrusion into one's daily life.



One might counter that the very presence of contextual ads may create a feeling of queasy intrusion. However, Gmail has (in my testing) been pretty cautious about placing ads next to apparently-personal or otherwise sensitive e-mails, and of course, it does not place any ads next to e-mail marked (automatically or manually) as spam. Still, there's admittedly the possibility of an unpleasant juxtaposition of a heartfelt e-mail with a angst-inducing related ad, but such an occurence is also possible via a song on a radio, an ad on TV, a seemingly random phone call, and so on. Our minds are rich in imagination, and capable -- for better or worse -- of astounding leaps of correlation. Once again, this is not something one should hold Gmail responsible for, IMHO, and it hardly seems to fit into the issue of privacy. And of particular note, the Gmail text ads are lightyears away from the ludicrous example of a billboard in one's living room, as one clearly-clueless senator has suggested in tandem with her anti-Gmail legislation.



So what we're left with, then, is the more meaty and complex aspect of privacy-as-secrecy. With Gmail's one gig of storage, it's no doubt that many folks will practically be entrusting their life's story -- AND secrets -- to Google. And in this area, I honestly have no easy answers. I will, however, attempt to address the various pieces:



- Security breaches / the bored employee

Google has an excellent history of data integrity, having (to my knowledge) avoided any data theft from its multi-billion dollar AdWords or AdSense programs. But other big players haven't been quite so successful. Many of Amazon.com's anonymous viewers found their screen names exposed a few months ago (frankly, much to my evil delight, since many if not most of the anons were shills and twits). On a less innocuous note, many Hotmail users found their accounts suddenly 'open to the public' due to a security exploit that Microsoft then understandably scrambled to fix.



Could Google stumble here? Nothing's impossible. Unfortunately (and in fairness to Google), however, this is a universal problem. Though I'd frankly trust Google with my data over most other companies, I think it'd be a mistake to assume that anyone's data is 100% safe, anywhere.



On a similarly sobering note, I'll add that it's trivially possible for an Information Systems worker at your company or your ISP to read your incoming and outgoing mail. Google has vehemently highlighted precautions it's taken to prevent this happening at their company, and frankly, I believe them. Would you, as a highly-compensated employee, risk your job at such a coveted organization for the opportunity to snoop into likely banal exchanges? Seems unlikely to me. But that aside... once again, this is not a Gmail issue. This is a general e-mail issue.





- Selling/giving data to other companies

As a Google (AdWords) Advertiser and Publisher (AdSense), I can tell you point-blank that Google does an incredible job at protecting the data of both its users (visitors to Google.com and AdSense Web sites) and its advertisers. As both an advertiser and publisher, I am absolutely unable to glean any personal information about people who click on my ads. Google actually maintains a very strict separation between its departments, and were it (or another company) to risk this integrity in the future, the brand would be tarnished beyond recovery (and it's not like there's not competition!). In other words, unlike with almost every other transaction we partake in In Real Life, I firmly believe we can trust Google not to share our personal info with other companies.



- Giving our secrets to federal governments... oh yeah, and lawyers

If Ashcroft applied enough pressure to Google next month and insisted on wiretapping a few dozen "suspected terrorist" accounts, I'm betting that Google would buckle.



Wow, that's probably not what you expected me to say, is it?



I'll surprise you further: I have no doubt that lawyers are indeed salivating at the likelihood of millions of people getting Gmail accounts and storing voluminous amounts of discoverable data, perfect for future lawsuits.



Of course, Ashcroft and -- to a less chilling but likely more common extent -- Dewey Cheatem and Howe have been subpoening mail records from Hotmail, Earthlink, Comcast, Big 10 universities, Fortune 500 companies, and so on. Gmail just expands the scope.

But Gmail isn't the problem

And now we get to the meat of this essay, in which I argue -- after acknowledging Gmail's unwilling-but-likely facilitation of government and lawyerly snooping -- that Gmail is absolutely, positively not the problem.



Electronic Freedom Fighter and longtime smart-geek Brad Templeton gives us a good start here via his entry on Privacy and Gmail, which includes:

...there are also some deep issues here, worth discussing with not just Google but all the other webmail providers

...but Brad doesn't go far enough. E-mail privacy concerns aren't -- or at least shouldn't -- be just limited to Webmail. As noted above, your mail is susceptible to snooping no matter where it resides... unless you're one of the 0.0000002% of geeks who use encryption, and that's likely to send up a red flag to Ashcroft anyway ;-). And though Brad's suggestion that Gmail incorporate a more user-friendly form of encryption has merit, I think it's a mere bandaid on larger problems. In fact, I'm generally uncomfortable with the feeling that Brad places the onus of responsibility (and solutions) upon technology, rather than those who abuse human rights via such technologies.

As we move these things [record of peoples' lives] online and outside, we build some of the apparatus for a surveillance society.

I strongly disagree. This is like saying that when Japan set up high-speed rail transit, the country created the apparatus for criminals to flee farther and faster. Or as long distance calling costs have become insanely cheaper over the last 15 years, it's made it much, much easier for people to plot nefarious acts over the phone more affordably.



The introduction of new technologies -- or the exponential improvement of existing technologies -- facilitates opportunities for good and for not-good. But blaming the technologies (particularly communication technologies) is horribly wrong for two reasons:



1) It stifles innovation, and keeps costs artificially high.



Can you imagine how much more work -- and perhaps more value -- Google could be putting into Gmail if they were able to spend less time fighting PR fires?



2) It takes our attention off of the real culprits: federal powers without sufficient accountability or checks or balances, not to mention a legal system which rewards, even necessitates antagonism over consensus.

Let's stop blaming tools, and start fixing the deeper problems

We should channel our indignations towards privacy-enroaching intrusions such as the Patriot Act. We should vote our representatives -- Democrat or Republican -- out of office when they value false security over liberty. We should demand accountability, and insist that our journalists actually ask tough questions in Washington D.c. (and around the world). We should, as Brad rightly notes, fix The Electronic Communications Privacy Act ("ECPA).



Wringing our hands over Google isn't just misguided, it's dangerous in that it blinds us to the root of deeper problems in our society:



1) As a society and individually, we're generally unable to intelligently weigh risks.



In our quest to "fight terrorism" we forget that far more people die from spousal abuse, drunk driving, malnutrition, etc. Will Ashcroft start scanning our e-mails for keywords relating to those causes of death? That's (thankfully) doubtful, but only because he -- and most of the FOX-watching public -- is unable to thoughtfully weigh risks and benefits.



In the vast storage that Gmail offers, non-profits can save and find key documents that help them better deliver social services. Grandparents can pull up pictures of their grandkids. Self-employed folks can be more productive, boosting their bottom line and doing their part to also buoy the economy. Sure, these are all butterfly-flaps, so to speak, in the ongoing history of society, but in the aggregate it adds up to a lot of good.



2) We are tragically misinformed and poorly educated and we don't seem to care.



We fail to take our liberties seriously until we see sensationalist articles in the paper or hear about grandstanding bills proposed by a tech-ignorant senator.



When I recently chatted with some friends here in the generally tech-savvy area of San Francisco about Gmail, nearly half suggested to me that they wouldn't touch Gmail with a ten-foot pole. "They're gonna read all the e-mail I get!" was the oft-expressed concern. Clearly, these people had no clue that their e-mails are already "read" many times enroute to their destination, nor did they think to actually visit Google's Gmail pages to get the real info about what the service would and would not be doing. Funny, but I don't recall my friends worrying about the privacy of their e-mail before.



I don't think the masses are misinformed because they're dumb (though there's certainly some of that). Rather, we absorb AND support the lowest common denominator in journalism. Not only does sex sell, but so does any bad news -- whether it's relevant or even true. "Duh, Sherlock" I hear you saying, teasing me for pointing out the obvious.



But if it's so obvious, why aren't people like Brad and other prominent technologists decrying the lack of journalistic integrity and dearth of basic technological education and knowledge in our society? I have no doubt that if more people knew and truly understood the tenuousness of our personal privacy in society (with regards to credit card purchases, political affiliations, and yes, e-mail), they'd be concerned and mobilized to change the fabric of society and government... rather than throwing stones at a Webmail provider that's providing a richer offering than its competitors.

In summary...

We need to focus on the fundmental roots of the erosion of our privacy, and realize that Gmail is a serendipitous wakeup call, not a culprit.



True... Gmail, in itself, is not likely to lead to absolute world peace, and indeed, it's admittedly easy and sometimes tempting to overstate what may be more of an evolutionary rather than revolutionary technological offering. But every moment people spend attacking this or any other communication tool amounts to time and efforts distracting us from the real (and real serious) issues facing our nation and our world.



* * *



Related entries:

- Brad Tempton's essay on The GMail Saga

- My review of Gmail

- My writeup of Gmail tips and tricks

- Blog posts (via Technorati) on Gmail and Privacy

Beauty in A cappella

When you think of a cappella, do you think of just cheesy barbershop? Think again. Give a listen to Una Aura Amorosa, sung by the Swingle Singers.

Così fan tutte K588, Act 1, Sc...

[and for those outside the U.S. who cannot access the lala clip above, you can view a live performance of this song from the same group here on YouTube]



If you don't agree that there is beauty here, you need your head examined ;-).



The Swingle Singers actually have quite a varied (and often amusing) repetoire. The song referenced above is from their 2CD combo: Bach Hits Back ~ A cappella Amadeus.



Edited on November 7, 2009 to correct links and remove ominous copyright-oriented note.

Got a Gmail account? Here are a few interesting tricks 'n' tidbits

[In case you didn't already notice, I wrote a pretty detailed review of Gmail earlier, in which I also noted that I'm unfortunately unable to procure accounts for folks. Sorry! For those who already have accounts, I hope the tips below are useful and/or fun :-) - Adam]



So, you're one of the Gmail testers and you want more bang for the buck, eh? Try these tips on for size:



SENDING & SHORTCUTS

- Send mail to fellow Gmail'er by just entering their username in the TO, CC, or BCC spot. No need to include @gmail.com :-)



- Did you reserve .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and now wish you had left out the darn period? It's not too late! For whatever reason, Gmail treats that e-mail address the same as one without a period (and visa versa), so .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) works just as well as .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). As you may have guessed, Gmail is flexible with regards to capitalizations, too!



- Using the handy-dandy spell-checker and want to quickly Resume Checking without using the mouse? Just hit 'R', an undocumented shortcut key in this context.

SEARCHING

- "or" is not the same as "OR." Only the capitalized version (sans quotes, by the way) will work with searches. So if you want to find mail from your friend Jen, you can use this in search: FROM: (jen OR jenny OR jennifer). Note, by the way, that the actual search terms are not case-sensitive. "jen" works just as good as "Jen."



- But, using the same Jen example, it's important to realize that the search engine of Gmail (and Google, for the most part) does not search partial words. So "jen" will not find "Jennifer."



PERFORMING ACTIONS ON A GROUP OF E-MAILS

- Let's say you have 150 e-mails, listed over two pages (100 max per page), and you want to archive all of them. I initially made the mistake of clicking ALL, then hitting ARCHIVE and thinking that this would do the trick. Nope. Commands -- whether TRASH or ARCHIVE or LABEL -- only affect those items that are both selected and on the page you're currently viewing.



- And speaking of groupings... don't forget that when you archive or label e-mail, you're affecting the entire Conversation of e-mails by default. If you want to trash just one of the e-mails in a Conversation, you can do this by expanding that particular e-mail, clicking on MORE OPTIONS, and then clicking on TRASH THIS MESSAGE.





ALL THIS *PLUS* A LITTLE BIT MORE

Gmail supports "plus" addressing, which means that if your address is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), you can receive e-mail at maryhadda+littlelamb@gmail.com or maryhadda+longaddress@gmail.com, etc. Why is this useful? Well, Mary (or you!) could use one, er, I'll call it a "plussing," for mailing lists ("maryhadda+lists"), and another for shopping online ("maryhadda+shopping") and so on, and then create filters to put useful labels on the different types of mail.



Some have suggested that this could also be a useful spam deterrent (e.g., using maryhadda+2004q2 and then discarding e-mail sent to this address the following quarter), but I think this suffers from two key flaws:

1) Spammers are probably smart enough to start stripping off the plussing :(.

2) After a while, you'd have to create a LOT of filters, and -- at least for the moment -- we only get an allotment of 20 filters total. It'd be a shame to use those all up in a (likely futile) attempt to thwart spamjerks.



*** Edited 4/30/04:

Some folks had expressed concern that plussing was seemingly not working for them. However, I've worked with them to track down the cause: Due to the way Gmail handles discussion list mails -- not showing one's own contributions in the Inbox to avoid duplicate views -- people who were testing the plussing feature by mailing themselves via Gmail wrongly assumed the mail was 'lost'. As it turns out, the mail was indeed received, but -- since it appeared to be part of a 'discussion list' -- was not shown in the Inbox, which is what caused the confusion.



THE BOTTOM LINE: Plussing works; just don't try sending tests to yourself FROM your Gmail account TO your same Gmail account :D.



* * *



Well, that's pretty much everything off the top of my head for now! How about you? Got some cool Gmail tips or tricks? Speak up below, or feel free to contact me :-)



* * *



*** Added 4/21/04

Uh oh! I have competition! :D It's been pointed out to me that there's already a blog dedicated to Gmail tips and tricks, called Gmail Gems. Definitely worth checking out.



*** Added 10/11/05

Want to read more stuff about Gmail and Google? Check out the BLADAM Google category! and don't forget to subscribe to this blog! (see the options in the top menu!)

A reminder of how meaningful Online socializing can be

There are many times in which I've felt that people -- myself included -- would benefit from logging off and getting a life. This sort of cynicism (or optimism, depending on one's take) is heightened when I read about people falling in love with someone else that they've "met" only online. Hey, I'll admit... been there, done that. And never again.



So, too, do I often ask myself why I continue to feel so passionate about online communities and online networking. With all the flaming and faking and fluffery and general bullshit, isn't it all just a waste of time?



Then every once in a while, I'm reminded why Online matters.

Recently, in a health-'n'-fitness related forum on orkut, a young, formerly active woman who is recovering (slowly) from a stroke posted a note expressing her general feeling of hopelessness.



Over the last few days, many of us took time to give her thoughtful advice and warm encouragement. And then today, she just posted a followup note letting us know how much our responses have meant to her... and has promised to start being more proactive about getting her life back.



This is just the tip of the iceberg. I've personally saved two women (each who 'met' me from a forum online) from commiting suicide by keeping them "talking" over IM, finding a local hotline number for them and convincing them to make that critical call (since I'm not a licensed counselor!). And on a less severe but also heartwarming note, a great many people have thanked me over the years for my contributions to online communities, often giving me specific examples of how my information or encouragement or even friendship has made a difference in their lives.



In the end, I may still be a hardened cynic about falling in love online, but I now truly believe that online communities can mean the world for people, one posting and one person at a time. And I hope, despite the brutally sensationalistic Internet headlines we're cursed with nowadays, we never forget about the real undercurrent of good humanity that flows throughout the 'net.

Learning from clich

Link to larger photo (340K)

"Take time to smell the flowers" is one of those phrases that perhaps make us roll our eyes. But, as with stereotypes, there are often nuggets of wisdom buried within the clich?s.

When recently visiting my parents in Southern California and exploring their newly remodeled backyard, I enjoyed lollying around with my tiny camera, exploring little nooks of leaves and flowers and rocks. Not just looking, but also smelling and touching, examining contours and textures.

"Right under our noses." "In our own backyards." So many of the sayings we blow off are perhaps the very ones we should be paying attention to now and again.

Google's Gmail - An in-depth look

I've had the pleasure of extensively beta testing Gmail for a few days, and I'm
happy to offer my thoughts about the service here. First, though, I'd like
to get a few disclaimers out of the way:

1. I don't work for Google. I'm not a Google employee
   and I do not speak for Google or the Gmail team, yadda yadda...


2. I can't get you a Gmail account. I can't even get accounts
   for my bestest friends. If you'd like to try out Gmail,
   I encourage
   you
   to
   sign
   the notification
   list here.


3. Gmail is in BETA (not yet a finalized product). Beta beta
   beta beta! Things will be fixed, improved, changed, etc. Therefore,
   I will try to resist the impule to nitpick about specific features that don't
   work perfectly because -- let's face it -- this is a BETA version, and
   what I'd write today would
   likely be fixed before long.

With that said... let's get on with the show :-D

OVERALL / THE BOTTOM LINE

For those too lazy or busy to read through my long note, here's the quick
summary for you:

Gmail is generally a delight to use. While it is not yet fit
to be a substitute for client-based e-mail systems (Eudora, Outlook, etc.),
nor does it yet have all the features of competing Webmail services, Gmail
is blindingly fast, its ads are unobtrusive (often even informative and
useful), and its label paradigm is promising. And of course, as one would
expect, the search features are unparalled. If you're not keen on seeing
text ads or
you prefer a more drag-and-drop GUI environment AND you don't mind paying
$30/year for a fabulous competing Webmail service, I urge you to check out OddPost.
Yes, the time has clearly come to ditch Hotmail and Yahoo!.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Hold the presses! Google has finally unveiled some of the best Gmail screenshots on its own :-).

NOTE: I've since added in a few screen shots (each <100K) which may be of interest to those of you reading along here...

- Gmail search

- Gmail filter, part 1 of 2

- Gmail filter, part 2 of 2

Also, you may wish to check out the screenshots posted by Kevin Fox (one of the UI designers of Gmail) and the review and screenshots posted by Sean Parker.

PRIVACY

Here are the facts:

• No new 'privacy invasion':
  
  Google parses, stores, and backs up any mail sent to its addresses. So does
  Hotmail, Earthlink, Yahoo, AOL, Comcast, and every single
  other ISP
  /
  corporation in the world. The only two differences in this context are the
  amount of space Google offers (encouraging people to save their mails could
  lead to easier subpoenas, but you can't blame Google for greedy divorce
  lawyers) and the fact that Google displays often-relevant ads next to the
  e-mails instead of the flashing and obnoxious "You're winner number 481023!!!!!!!!"
  ad banners you see in other Webmail services.


• Ads are limited, unobtrusive:
  
  There are no ads placed in outgoing e-mails... not even any tagline. There
  are no ads placed inside incoming e-mails, either, as
  you've likely noticed from various screenshots of Gmail around the Web.
  Just occasional ads and/or Related Sites listed on the righthand side of
  the Gmail
  screen. It should be noted, too, that -- unlike with many other sites --
  these ads and site listings are shown after the mail
  content itself is drawn, so there's no waiting for your actual mail text
  to load. Additionally, with Gmail there are no popups, no popunders, no
  graphical banners, no extra e-mails sent to you begging to have you upgrade
  to "Google Premium" and so on.


• There's no profiling maintained:
  
  We could go back and forth with arguments about "But
  Ashcroft could MAKE them profile!" or "Google is lying!" but
  I'm not even going to get into these hypotheticals. The bottom line is
  that Google has explicitly noted that all targeting info gleaned from the
  mail
  you
  receive
  is discarded
  immediately after an ad is selected and shown, end of story. If you're
  still not comfortable with that, perhaps Gmail isn't for you, and that's
  okay! :-).
  
  

OPENING AN ACCOUNT

I was amazed at the simplicity of this process. No request for demographics,
no long "opt-in mailing list opportunities" to wade through. The only required
info: First and last name, and a preferred Gmail username. One thing of note:
All usernames must be a minimum of 6 characters, which is a downer for the
many of us who have short first names. Strangely, that's actually irrelevant
in a way, because Google apparently blocked off all common names (even of >6
characters) early on, so all the Jim Smiths and Jane Does and so on were out
of luck from the get go. I'm guessing they did this to minimize the impact
of dictionary and general spam attacks, but maybe they were just trying to
be oddly egalitarian :D.

READING E-MAIL

At
first, I was a bit wary about Gmail's "Conversation" (semi-threaded) view of
e-mails, but I've grown to really like this. Keep in mind that this isn't true multi-level
threading, and IMHO, that's a good thing. Instead of helter-skelter indenting
here and there, conversations (composed of e-mails with the same message ID
and subject
line)
are stacked on top of each other in a single layer like cards. Gmail
handles this part of the
interface beautifully! When there are a few e-mails, Gmail shows the
TO and FROM names and a snippet from the e-mail. When there are many e-mails
in a conversation,
Gmail just visually shows the stacked cards; one click then shows the TO/FROM
+ snippet, and another click instantly expands the e-mail to show the full
text, minus quoted text from the earlier replies.
In any situation, one can expand all the e-mails with a single click or open/close
any individual e-mail, though
as of yet, there are puzzlingly no ways to collapse an entire conversation.

This is one of those aspects of Gmail you just have to experience to appreciate.
Even when you've archived a conversation, when someone later replies to the
same thread, you get the full 'stack of cards' again... allowing you to mentally
get back into the earlier context in a heartbeat.

The elegance of Gmail is evident even before one begins reading mail. The
Inbox, which -- as you'd expect -- includes a list of the mails waiting for
you, intelligently expands or contracts the length of the mail snippet it shows
you, depending upon your screen resolution, browser size, and font size. In
other words, everything fits perfectly, no matter how your computer is setup.
Okay, taking a step back, that's not completely true; I'll take a (very) brief
detour to acknowledge that Gmail's not compatible with all browsers, since
not all support javascript and DHTML to the level required at this point in
the beta test. The Gmail team has noted that they are actively working to improve
compatibility, and I trust 'em. For the 94%+ of the Internet-enabled public
that uses IE, there'll be no problems.

Gmail also offers some other subtle features, like using a more muted font
color (gray'ish) for signatures, along with a javascript-based hide/show
option for quoted text. This latter part is especially appreciated, given how
many clueless noobs have not yet grasped the concept of trimming replies. Perhaps
(he says, optimistically), the eventual widespread use of Gmail and its default
conversation view will encourage people to start removing the > > > > >'d text
of the earliest 47 replies in a thread. One can only hope! :-)

Lastly, Google has followed the lead of Microsoft/Outlook (!) and has disabled
by default the showing of referenced graphics in all incoming HTML e-mails.
This is to stymie the practice of spammers who often place "web bugs" (invisible
graphics) in their mails to track who opens them, likely sending those poor
saps an even greater amount of mail or selling their data on an "active e-mailer
-- send them more spam!" premium mailing list :|. So, on the obvious upside,
Gmail is taking a successful and laudable swipe against spammers. Unfortunately,
there is no white-listing of this default blocking; users must click on the
"show graphics" link every time they get an HTML e-mail from even an opt-in
source (e.g., a daily tech newsletter you've asked for).

COMPOSING AND SENDING E-MAIL

It's ridiculously easy to start an e-mail. You can hit 'R' to reply, for instance,
or even just click in the little box below an e-mail you're reading, and it'll
instantly expand... complete with quoted text all ready for you. Additionally,
Gmail's conversation-view is maintained, letting you scroll up and see the
full history of the mail or mails you're replying to.

There's also a built-in spellchecker that's pretty straightforward to use,
though I don't believe it yet offers a way to add words to a 'personal dictionary.'

Addressing mail is quite a pleasure. Gmail remembers
the names and addresses of people you've previously written to, and then pops
up -- in real time, as you type each letter! -- names of matching recipients,
ordered by the frequency with which you've written them in the past. So if
you often write Belinda Jones, as soon as you hit 'B' then 'E', it'll show
(and have already highlighted in anticipation) "Belinda Jones <bjones@whatever.com>"

Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to send HTML e-mail, and any received
HTML mails that are replied to or forwarded will be converted into plain text.
I am fairly certain that this will change before Gmail's public release.

Also, there is not yet a way to save a draft of an e-mail being written, though
-- once again -- I expect that this will be added, since it seems to me to
be a rather basic feature.

ATTACHMENTS

KaZaA fans, wipe that excited smile off your face. Gmail limits both incoming
and outgoing mails to 10 megs in size (including attachments), so don't plan
on using your gig allotment to store 'n' forward bootlegged movies. Sorry ;-)

For the rest of us, Google's attachment offerings are serviceable if not particularly
inspired. jpegs, unlike with other services, aren't viewed inline, and perhaps
that's good (especially for dialup folks). EXE files are not allowed (due to
virus concerns), and that's also smart, IMHO. You can attach and remove files
before sending, but you can't remove attachments from files you've received.
That's a bit of a bummer when your overeager friends send you an e-mails you'd
like to keep, if it weren't for the dumb (and uncompressed) 8 meg photos or
music files attached.

By the way, currently Gmail is a bit coy about letting you know of attachment
sizes, or even the general size of your individual or grouped mails. There's
no column or -- as far as I can tell -- any indication at all of how big your
mail is. Gmail is clearly serious (IMHO, too serious) about dumbing down
this aspect of the service to encourage people to archive rather than delete
their mail.

MANAGING E-MAIL

Conversations

It takes a bit getting used to the fact that -- while it's usually possible
to perform actions on individual e-mails -- Google generally acts upon all
your e-mail in sets of conversations, as noted earlier. Ads targeting, archiving,
and labeling... it's all done to conversations. At first, this bothered me;
what if I want to label just one e-mail in a long conversation? However, in
practice, I've noticed that I've grown to like the less granular approach to
handling my incoming mail, and I haven't seemed to miss the ability to star
or label or archive one specific piece of a conversation.

Labeling

Moving away from the folder paradigm is actually both a bold and smart move
for Google. Given the longevity of the folder model in pretty much every other
existing Webmail
service and software application, I'm guessing that this may be initially a
bit
of
a
jarring change in the way people approach and think about their mail. However,
I am confident that close to 100% of the people who try Gmail will learn to
appreciate using labels over folders.

Why? The key difference is that it's now possible to file your mail conversations
under more than one heading. When you get a detailed diary-type note from your
Aunt about her travels in Costa Rica, you can now file this under "Family"
and "Travel," which in the grand scheme of e-mail filing is a lot more valuable
than you might think at first glance.

However, while labels do offer greater filing options, I
can imagine that the current Gmail labeling system may become rather unwieldly
over time. Labels
are now listed alphabetically and cannot be re-ordered or stacked hierarchically,
and as the number of labels one uses increases, I fear that it'll become harder
both to mark and to browse mails. Let's say, for instance, that you're a music
reviewer, and initially you create labels for each artist or group you review.
After a while, though, your label list starts to get a bit unwieldly, and it'd
be nice to group labels into, well, hierarchical groups (by geography, genre,
etc.) In
other words, labels currently allow for nice grouping, but -- as of yet --
not good grouping of groups, if that makes any sense :-)

Filtering

At this time, Gmail filtering seems rather rough around the edges... it supports
filtering only of incoming mail... no editing of filters, no filtering of mail
you've already received, and no filtering
on outgoing e-mail. I expect this to be rapidly improved as the beta progresses,
however. And in general, Gmail filtering is already extremely fast and also
reasonably powerful. One can use OR, along with parenthetical groupings, and
also many keywords (subject:, from:, etc.). Currently, Gmail users are limited
to
a maximum
of 20 filters, but I hope and expect this limit to be lifted in the future.

Anti-spam issues

It's unclear to me how Gmail's spam filter works. Or rather, unfortunately
in my case, doesn't work. I'm currently having to deal with an enormous
number of false positives and and false negatives. This would bother me less
if I
had
an inkling
of what mechanism Gmail uses to filter spam (Bayesian? Fingerprinting of mails
marked as spam by others? Content analysis?), which would allow me to understand
how this filtering might improve dramatically over time. Luckily, though, it's
a pretty simple and quick matter to mark mail as spam and not-spam, with the
former even being available via a shortcut key (the exclamation point, which
does seem quite fitting :D).

One additional irritation, though, is that when you mark mail as spam, Google
puts it into your spam bin, when it should instead place it in the trash bin.
After all, unlike mail that's been marked as spam by Gmail, this mail we've affirmatively noted
is spam; there's no need for us to look at it a second time.

Personally, I'm hoping that Gmail ends up using Bayesian
filtering. Using
Outlook plus the free Bayesian spam filter called POPfile,
I find that my mail is handled with greater than 99% accuracy...
pretty hard to beat!

 

THE ADS

While I'm almost afraid to admit this, I rarely even notice the ads on the
righthand side of the page. They're that unobtrusive. But when I do
notice them, I find the targeting to be, ahem, still in need of quite a bit
of fine tuning. And here's what confuses me: Given that the Gmail engineers
are (understandably) disallowed from viewing folks' private e-mail, how will
they go about improving ad targeting? I wish there was an option (during the
beta period, and with full disclosure!) to allow Gmail engineers to
personally read and analyze mail we mark as having "poor targeting" to enable
them to quickly improve their ad targeting. I realize they may already
be
sharing
personal
e-mail
internally for this purpose already,
but with their numbers, this just isn't sufficient.

With that said, I do have to note that in many cases, the ad targeting has
been both appropriate AND useful. Not only am I often shown ads that make perfect
(related) sense, but I also appreciate the frequency with which Google intelligently
shows spot-on "related pages." For instance, someone was talking about a particular
software program in an mailing list note I received, and voila, Gmail had a
link to the company that makes that product under "Related Pages."

The unobtrusiveness of the ads, while at initial consideration may seem to
be a downside for advertisers, is likely not a problem in this context. This
is because AdWords advertisers are not penalized for low click-thrus
on content sites and in Gmail, and they only pay when people click on their
ads. If the click-thru rate via
Gmail is low -- perhaps with people only noticing very highly relevant
ads -- then Google will lose out on some revenue in the short term, but advertisers
won't
be harmed
and may even be helped. In the long term, I think Gmail ads will be well-liked
by most consumers and advertisers alike.

As for inappropriate or insensitive targeting... I haven't noticed this to
a be a problem yet. I sent a couple of test mails to my Gmail account, focusing
linguistically on the theme of death and dying, and Gmail "outsmarted" me each
time. That is to say, when
I sent e-mails about "dying to see funny jokes... man, that
last one had me out of breath, on the floor, and about ready to die!..." Gmail
smartly showed ads for Joke stuff. When I wrote a note (thankfully untrue!)
of equal
length about
a relative dying ("Isn't it funny how the doctors didn't notice anything strange
about Aunt Martha before she died?... You have to laugh at the incompetence
of medical staff nowadays..."), Gmail showed no ads whatsoever. I'm sure there
will be instances in which Gmail's
targeting
results
in ironic
or
even
unpleasant
juxtapositions,
but it seems to me that this should be rare, and in the end probably no more
likely than the scenario of a recently-widowed woman seeing an untargeted but
equally jarring ad for "Single? Looking to date?" ad in her Yahoo mail.

 

OVERALL USER INTERFACE, operations plus look and feeel

Though, as I've hammered home, this is indeed still a beta version, I must
admit to strongly mixed feelings about the way in which Gmail has been structured
and the ways in which its designers expect users to interact with the system.

Thumbs up:

• Lots of useful keyboard shortcuts... "g i" lets you Go to your Inbox,
  "y" enables you to instantly archive a conversation and so on.


• The interface is subtlely colorful without being garish.


• Frames are used in a such a way as to dramatically minimize screen-redraw
  time. Unlike with most other Webmail systems, actions (mail deletions, labeling,
  etc.) are performed with amazing speed, letting the user continue working
  without waiting a while for the actions to take effect.


• Navigation is simple, straightforward, and fast! Unlike with any other
  Webmail service I've seen, I can open up an e-mail (or e-mail conversation)
  and, hitting the back button, be back at the listing of my emails in less
  than half a second. Though Gmail lets one open up emails in a separate window,
  there's now really no need to do so.


• As part of all the stuff noted above, javascript is used brilliantly and
  effectively. Though there are legitimate
  concerns about accessibility, I am confident that Google will indeed
  work hard to make Gmail usable by the handicapped.

Thumbs down:

• Some of the most common tasks are not supported by keyboard shortcuts or
  even streamlined mousing. Labeling and unlabeling conversations, for instance,
  is often quite tedious. There's no way (I can tell, at least) to select multiple
  e-mails without mousing it; it'd be nice to be able to quickly use the arrow
  keys to either select or at least navigate through an e-mail list, for instance.


• Form elements are often used in ways that are not standard, nor necessarily
  intuitive. For instance, on every screen that includes a list of your mail,
  there is a submit-style button with a pulldown menu right next to it. Convention
  would suggest that the expected behavior would involve selecting an option
  via the pulldown menu, then clicking on the submit-style button. But this
  is not the case. Instead, each performs a separate function. The submit-style
  button performs one-click actions that are context-dependent (e.g., "archive"
  in the incoming mail screen), and the pulldown menu lets one perform different
  actions, also depending on the context. Additionally, there are no ways to
  access
  most of the pulldown menu options via a shortcut key, and -- worse
  yet -- the options aren't in an ordered or numbered list which'd allow for
  quick one-button access after selecting the pulldown menu.


• Though keyboard shortcuts are great, I wish Gmail followed the OddPost
  model of right-click (mouse) functionality as well... being able to quickly
  select a large group of emails and then right-click on "mark as read" for
  instance. After all, since Gmail is more of an app than a Web page (or set
  of Web pages), it'd make perfect sense for it to disable the traditional
  Web-page-related right-click options
  ("save
  shortcut" for instance).


• Sometimes, it seems like the Gmail engineer geeks are, well, thinking like
  geeks and not like Joe and Jane consumer. While the Gmail folks have added
  in lots of wonderful little touches that make the service more convenient
  and easy to
  use, they've also crufted up the service in a few maddening ways... like
  having keyboard shortcuts be unnecessarily geek-style cryptic, or requiring
  "OR" to be capitalized in filter strings.

OTHER THOUGHTS

One gig is pretty impressive, both marketing-speak-wise and otherwise. But
I am unconvinced that this is really enough to enable people to store 'all
their mail' for many years. Google's own writing/marketing/PR people seem to
be admittedly schizophrenic on this issue, sometimes claiming that 1 gig will
be all people ever need, other times saying it'll last people for "years,"
and in one of their help files, bragging that it'll be enough for five years
of storage for the average user. I know I'm likely on the un-average side of
the curve, but -- even without heavy mailing list traffic and with hardly any
attachments -- I'm slated to fill up my 1 gig allotment in 400-500 days --
well under two years. What then? Perhaps Google will be offering two gigs
of
storage by that time, but I must admit a little bit of concern in this area.

Overall, though, my biggest concern about Gmail has been Google's surprising
bungling of Gmail PR and general communications. There's no reason why 90+%
of articles about Gmail should be so negative, so speculative, so uninformed!
Did Google reach out proactively to journalists on April 2nd to walk them through
the coolness that is Gmail? Did Google proactively contact privacy advocates
and privacy-oriented organizations to candidly address their concerns before they
started screaming publicly? Apparently not. I actually could go on about the
these issues (privacy concerns and Google's handling of them), but I think
that's enough fodder for a separate blog entry, which I'll link to here if
I choose to write it in the future.

Anyway, I hope this has been informative, and please be assured that I'll
read (and, in batches) respond to all comments posted below. Thanks for stopping
by BLADAM,
and please feel free to check out other entries here, perhaps even browsing
by categories listed on the righthand side :-).

* * *

And in the next episode(s) of BLADAM reviews Gmail...

• Gmail Tips and Tricks


• More commentary on Gmail and the Privacy


• Comparing Gmail and Outlook e-mail, along with possibly Hotmail and Yahoo
  mail

Others who have provided worthwhile bloggy reads about Gmail:

• Eric Case


• Derek Powazek


• Denise Howell


• Matt Haughey


• Esther Dyson


• KWC


• Jay Han


• Kevin Fox (throughout his blog)


• Ahmad Anvari


• Greg