The ULTIMATE Free e-mail, or g-mail....

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by ranma_saotome20

Oh sure, you delete my post for me expressing myself... What I was saying (in the non-offensive version) is that I couldn't believe that they are offering that much space. Why would any company offer such a thing and still have it be free? It doesn't make any sense. What are they getting out of it? (don't mind me, i'm extremely paranoid...)

Ranma-

They are getting the same thing that all free email providers get- Advertising dollars.

The reason Google can affored to offer so much space is because of two factors (or, the two most likely factors in my mind):

1. Instead of banner ads that I think most people have learned to completely block out, Google will be inserting targeted ads (I am still not sure were they are inserted exactly) that will be based on the topics that the message discusses. This is attractive to advertisers because, on paper at least, it seems like their money will get more impact. So, Advertisers will spend more for an ad and more people will use the service because of the extra storage, which means more ads. So, this has the potential to make Google a lot of money, as well as getting people used to Google as more then just a search engine.

2. Storage is cheap and only getting cheaper. Sure, 1 Gb is a lot, but then I belive consumer drives are under a dollar a gig. I'm sure that large scale server level drives are even cheaper and faster.

Now, there have been lots of questions raised about security, since Googles computers will be reading all your mail. These concerns are valid, I think, and it will be up to google to adress them. That said, it's still a searchable gig for free.

-Andy