PC Magazine breaks down the features of GMAIL, Yahoo and Hotmail.
As you can see GMAIL has some great features but they really need to get POP Mail supported to take it to the next level. However, I don’t know if Google will ever allow POP mail (i.e. being able to download your email to a desktop email client like Eudora, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc). The reason? If Google allows POP mail it will make it hard, or impossible, for them to include their targeted advertising in each email message. Ads would probably have to be at the bottom of the message in order to fit into the typical three-pain design of email, and ads would loose their formatting if the person had HTML email off.
Bottom line: The targeted advertising is how Google justifies the free 1GIG of email. POP mail makes it hard to maintain the advertising.
My guess? Google charges $19.95a year for POP email and creates their first, large scale paid relationship with their customers (Adsense and Adwords are a small population of people).
This could get very interesting.
|
Feature List |
Gmail |
Yahoo Mail |
MSN Hotmail |
|
Conversations |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Storage |
1GB |
4MB |
2MB |
|
Labels |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Built-in Search |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Number of Attachments |
Unlimited (10MB maximum size per message) |
Three |
Unlimited (1MB maximum size per message) |
|
Virus scanning |
No |
Yes (Norton) |
Yes (McAfee) |
|
Address Book |
No (Very basic contact management) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Import/Export Contacts |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Calendar |
No |
Yes |
No (Requires premium membership) |
|
Spam Filter |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Pop Access |
No |
No |
No |
|
Archiving |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Automatic Forwarding |
No |
No |
No |
|
Forced Promotional Ad Tagline in Message |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Notepad |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Sync with Outlook, Outlook Express, Palm or Other Organizer |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Expiration Time if Inactive |
Nine months |
Four months |
30 days |
|
Auto-Fill of E-Mail Addresses |
Yes |
No |
No |
