Submitted by Shiv Bhandari06.24.2008
Gmail's increase to 1 GB was announced on April 1, 2005 and was made for the first anniversary of Gmail. The announcement was accompanied by a statement that Google would "keep giving people more space forever," as part of their "Infinity+1" storage plan. As of this writing, Gmail offers just under 7 GB which it displays in an ever-growing counter on the guest Gmail homepage.
After Gmail's initial announcement and development, many existing web mail services quickly increased their storage capacity in an effort to stop Gmail from stealing their users. With Yahoo offering free unlimited storage, one could argue that it's only a matter of time before the other oligarchs follow suit.
With Google's 10th anniversary coming up on September 7, 2008, the timing seems ripe for an important update.
Gmail currently provides more than 6800 Megabytes of free storage and paid additional storage from 10 GB (US$20/year) up to 400 GB (US$500/year).
This is a prediction that Gmail will announce free and unlimited storage for Gmail by September 7, 2008. Such a move could swing things its way once and for all.
Suggested Odds50.00%
Prediction Close Date:09.07.2008 (EST)
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Comments
Is there any relevant recent news to facilitate this move? Love the idea, just wondering if you've heard or seen something.
Going unlimited for a fee, I can understand (which is consistent with GOOG pricing model). Going unlimited for free might be tougher to swallow. Then again, one never knows.
There was a blog post which discussed this, I don't recall which one. But essentially it put together the pieces of the puzzle -
Gmail's increase from 1 GB was announced on April 1, 2005 and was made for the first anniversary of Gmail. The announcement was accompanied by a statement that Google would "keep giving people more space forever," as part of their "Infinity+1" storage plan. With Google's 10th anniversary coming up in September, something is definitely on the cards.
After Gmail's initial announcement and development, many existing web mail services quickly increased their storage capacity, to stop Gmail from stealing their users. With Yahoo offering free unlimited storage, its only a matter of time before the other oligarchs follow suit. The questions isn't if it will happen, but when.
@Shiv, based on your excellent comments, I made some edits to your original suggestion using your own words. My only concern is the long ROI. What if you made the anniversary in September the "trigger" for such an announcement instead of a year from now?
@Shiv, also, making it unlimited *might* be a stretch, but going from 1 GB to 25 GB might be in the works. I am referring of course to this blog post. Note the size for current Premier Edition users.
@Eric, currently GMail offers just under 7GB, with the amount slowly incrementing constantly (as displayed on the GMail homepage). Quadrupling it would be a big jump, but not a game-changing one.
Thanks for clarifying that, @Bradley. I made a minor word edit to Shiv's post as a result in the 1st paragraph.
Sounds good. But what do you plan to do about the actual wording of the prediction - "Gmail will jump the gun and announce free by the end of June"
I would fix grammatical issues before pushing it out as a full-blown prediction (if you didn't fix it first).
By the way - LOVE the new user-icon, yet I am also frightened.
Thanks! I didn't doubt that you would fix it - I was wondering what you were going to change it to. As in, unlimited, 25GB or any increase (over and above the current rate of increase)?
That's really up to you. It's your prediction, after all, which people are obviously reacting to favorably. If you want to keep it as unlimited, I'm OK with that. I do like the idea of making September the trigger date due to the anniversary your pointed out.
Actually, @Shiv, was Google's 10th anniversary last year?
No. Google's official founding date was September 7, 1998.
http://google.weblogsinc.com/2005/09/07/googles-7th-birthday/
@Shiv, yes, you're right. I found the same fact in John Battelle's book, Search, "On September 7, 1998, Google Inc. was formally incorporated, with Page as CEO and Brin as president." Thanks
sir,
Iam realy happy in your mail service. Because I hae get more space.Iam very very happy. Because I LOVE SO MUCH. 100000....... thankssssss. I hope your more offers. GOD bless you. Pleas Inform more happy news send my mail.
by
abdul hakkeem.
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