Gmail's development confidentiality, present and future issues such as 10 years since the start of service

April 1, 2014, Google's free webmail service "Gmail"Celebrated 10 years since the test version was released on April 1, 2004. Gmail now has users who are said to be 400 million people worldwide, but sometimes they received various objections during the development stage. About the history and present of such Gmail, and further concerning the problem of the Internet society including e - mail,TIMEThe magazine net version is posting column.

How Gmail Happened: The Inside Story of Its Launch 10 Years Ago Today | TIME.com
http://time.com/43263/gmail-10th-anniversary/

On April 1, 2004, Google is a web-based free mail serviceRelease the preview version of "Gmail"I made it clear. At that time, as a major free mail serviceYahoo! MailAnd Microsoft'sHotmail(Current:Outlook.com), And so on, Google will enter this service in a form that follows. Although it is such Gmail, first of all the overwhelming thing was the huge storage capacity that was set for each user's mailbox. Gmail is suddenly in the era when many other companies boasted a capacity of several megabytes to hundreds of megabytes and appealed.1 GBAnnouncing that it will provide literally a difference in service called literally "to be able to use such huge capacity for free?" Surprised many users.

The press release announced at that time can be confirmed from the following link. There seems to be something that makes the impression of April Fools feel somehow, even though the impression received from a slightly missing sentence.

Google Gets the Message, Launches Gmail - News announcements - News from Google - Google
http://googlepress.blogspot.jp/2004/04/google-gets-message-launches-gmail.html


In addition to the capacity that greatly exceeded common sense at the time, in the press release "fast search performance based on Google search engine" and "display tree structure mail on the same screen" and "spam filter" There is also an item that overrides common sense of free e-mail, and there are many users who do not keep in touch with "April 1st of April so it will be Google April Fool's Neta"BBC's coverage at the timeI can tell from you.

◆ Development stage
After that, service provision was actually started and Gmail, which became clear that it was not a story, is now growing rapidly in services that are said to be used by a total of 400 million people worldwide. The period of time required for development until release is 3 years, in the meantime, from various departments within the company "Gmail unnecessary theoryI took a chance.

"Gmail states that Google engineers may use 20% of their working hours for something other than work.20% ruleIt is said that it is the best thing that was born. "In fact, it came about in developmentPaul · Book HeightMr. said that it was a mistake and "We developed e-mail development as a business of the company from the beginning."


He joined Google in 1999 and is the 23rd employee at the company. It will be involved in Gmail development from August 2001, but its origin was webmail software developed around 1996 before joining Google. Mr. Book Height first installed a mail search engine on my personal computer, showed it to my colleague's engineer and asked the reaction, so I immediately received a request to install it on my PC. This triggered the formation of Gmail 's service with features not found in other e - mail clients.

However, in order to make use of the high-performance search engine that Google boasts, the storage capacity of the scale suitable for it becomes indispensable. In order to build a mail service where users do not have to worry about the remaining capacity and e-mails are left forever, users with 1 GB per user are offered a large capacity unexpected to users .

Speaking of Google at the time, its high-performance search engines such as Yahoo!, Excite, Lycos, etc, which were not found in other companies, became their identities, but to deviate from that area and advance into the field of webmail For voice against you will be gathered. Mr. Bookheight looks back then and says, "Many opposing opinions were received from both the product side and the strategic side." Many of the objections were such as "There is nothing to do with the search engine" and "Microsoft and others will give an excuse to kill Google." However despite many objections, Gmail's project, which had obtained much support from Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, has steadily been developed for completion went.

Mr. Bookheit said, "If someone said that" it is impossible, "in fact the word is" based on my very limited experience and narrow understanding Then it should be understood that it is unlikely to succeed. "

ByMathieu Thouvenin

Brian Rakowski, who joined Google in 2002 and later served as Gmail 's first product manager, looked back then and said, "Gmail at the time was similar to the current one, and it looks completely different It was a story, "I confess that I was terribly confused by the fact that I was developing a thing that the general user is far from what I want. Still, the engineer group concentrates on creating their satisfying service by thinking that "problems that we feel are the problems that the general user feels in the future". Mr. Rakowski said at the time that Mr. Larry Page said, "Ten years later, general users do the same thing as you guys are now."

Even at the stage of August 2003 when two years passed since development started, Gmail's front end design remained in a very primitive state. At that time, Kevin Fox, who will be in charge of the interface, will join the team. Mr. Fox recognized the importance of adding "Google-likeness" to Gmail's appearance, but he did not have a clear vision. At that time the company had provided search engine Google and Google News started in September 2002, but they said that they are web "sites", whereas Gmail was a web "app" It is because there is a difference.

Regarding its design process, Mr. Fox says, "I was able to do a wide range of tries fortunately though it was to make a completely different kind of product," after three major stages, I talk about reaching the same concept design. The screenshot below shows Gmail's screen when launched in April 2004.


In Hitmail and Yahoo! Mail, which was born in the 1990s prior to Gmail and had an interface based on HTML, it was necessary to reload the page every time the user changed something, so user friendliness was inconvenient was. In response to such webmail situation, Gmail builds an interface that uses more highly interactive JavaScript, and succeeds in realizing a natural operation feeling for users who had not been used before.

As Gmail pioneered the use of JavaScript, nobody knew if it would actually be usable. To the use of such JavaScript, the opposite voice comes from Google inside. Because affinity with browsers was not yet high, he says that there was concern that "When the browser crashes at the critical time, the user will never use the service again." However, it can be said that adoption of JavaScript resulted in success in Gmail as a result.

From inside Google, there is a voice saying "Gmail should be a paid service", many of the staff including Mr. Book Height said "We offer it free for users to use, Adopt sales models by advertising ". Speaking of advertisements in free e-mail at that time, many cases used flashing banner ads, but product manager Rakowski said "I am not planning to paste the banner on the screen of Gmail" and " As we had decided from the beginning ", we stuck firmly to display text advertisements automatically generated on the basis of contents of e-mail on the screen.

The same problem as advertisement was a mechanism of mail analysis. Although other Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail will parse mails that arrived at the server, it is only for dealing with spam mails, whereas Gmail analyzes the contents deeper to make effective advertisements We have a mechanism unique to Google to realize. Even if it was automatic analysis by computer, analyzing the contents of the text proved to be an argument. Georges Hallik, who was striving to be responsible for new products at Google, said, "As a result of much consideration beforehand as to whether it is regarded as just an infringement of privacy or actual privacy infringement, this is" feeling It is a problem concerning "the difference of one person" "and concluded that it basically does not infringe privacy.

Until it is open to the public
The timing of the public release is finally coming to the project of Gmail which has been kept confidential. Almost all Googlers are now using Gmail in the beginning of 2004, releases to the general public are nearby. And finally, the timing of release decided was "April 1, 2004".

The company also had a special day on April 1 and April Fools of 2004 was supposed to announce the story of "Google will start recruiting staff working at the lunar research center" It was. Gmail, which was decided to be released on such a day, was supposed to be caught as one of the magnificent stories combined with the number "1 GB" that was out of common sense at that time.


Mr. Rakowski said "At the time of this release, Mr. Brin was the most exciting thing.When the unlucky deck plan announced on April 1 still continues to exist the next day, This is the ultimate April Fools, "he says.

As the schedule for service launch is getting closer and the staff will be busy preparing, it was not able to secure a huge storage capacity with a critical server, and it was impeding preparation. Mr. Book Haight can not prepare the machine because he thinks that other people "I can not launch services anyway" as Mr. Book Height can not prepare the machine.And we can not launch it because we do not have the machine " I was looking back on it. "

Ultimately, the development team utilized 300 Pentium III-based machines that were too old and nobody was using it and were rolling inside the company. I set up the machine and managed to start the service on April 1st. Still, it seems that it was necessary and sufficient for the beta test provided for a limited number of people.

When the service is started and the perception that it is a true service rather than an April fool spreads, the access right to the Gmail service, which only a limited number of people can use, gets attention. The development team says that the effect was "not intended", but the access rights to rare value Gmail will be the dream of people. In eBay of the auction site, trading at a premier price of $ 150 (approx. 15,000 yen), and using existing Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail came to be regarded as "dasa" It is about.

Despite unexpectedly attracting people's attention, Mr. Book Height said that even in 1014, 20 years after 10 years, "If I had more resources, I think I gathered more users in the first year "I look back on my regret. Although Gmail continued to expand limited services afterwards, it was necessary to wait for 2007 Valentine's Day in nearly three years after the full service release. Also, the letters of "beta" that were displayed on the logo for a long time never been removed until July 2009 two years later.

◆ Future issues and problems
The technique of using the body of the email as a material of advertisement will cause more reaction than we expected. Discussions will be made as to whether the privacy is compromised at the time of mail reception or at the time of transmission, and doubts will also be raised concerning the collection method and the retention period of the data. The issue of privacy concerning Gmail is still ongoing various controversies and disputes and attention is gaining attention for future progress. Based on this matter, Microsoft has developed various campaigns, including selling goods that condemn Google to monetize privacy.

Microsoft began selling anti-Google goods at official store - GIGAZINE


Google Chrome is making money by monetizing your personal information! Microsoft's movie appeared - GIGAZINE


In the meantime, Gmail has reached the timing of the 10th anniversary, but in the world IT technology has advanced in the world and it is becoming a society in which all the earth is literally connected with the net. Although there is no doubt that it certainly enjoyed the merit as compared with the past, in the column it is pointed out that the life pattern of human being is being dominated by the net at the same time is also an undeniable fact. Mr. Book Height talks about the current situation as "the problem brought about by e-mail is said that social customs are getting worse."

Especially for those who frequently use e-mails at work, "Whatever you are doing, no matter what you are doing, the presence of e-mail does not leave your head and you are required to respond"24/7"This is a society," This is not a technical problem, it is not improved by computer algorithms, it is a problem that society held, "Mr. Book Height shows the way of thinking in the Internet era The column has been closed.