Time To Get Gmail

I've planned on writing about Gmail for a while now, but truth be told this month was supposed to be part one in a two part video newsletter about How to Do Search Engine Optimization. I was going to shoot the video this past Saturday, and was heading out the door when I decided to test my camera first. Good thing I did. Turns out Panasonic hasn't released a camcorder driver that's compatible with my new Vista laptop. So I have to decide whether to wait until they do provide a driver, or buy a new camcorder. As a result, Gmail has suddenly moved up on my editorial calendar.

Since my operating system failed me, it's fitting that I write about Gmail instead. My initial motivation for using Gmail was to become platform independent. I want to be able to work from any computer, anywhere in the world.

Back in June 2006 Newfangled was moving into our temporary new digs on West Weaver Street in Carrboro, NC. (Now we're in a more permanent location down the street--check out Chris Butler's Picasa Album of our new place.) Since having made the move to NC in 2005, I had been working from home. Problem was, I had two different computers, my home office computer and my computer at the office. When I was at the office I couldn't access my files at home, and I couldn't get to my old emails stored in Outlook on my home computer. I tried a bunch of things. A remote access system called Avvenu worked pretty well to access random documents. I also tried using my Treo with Windows Mobile to sync up my email and docs which didn't end up working very well. Everything I tried seemed kludgey, and email was the biggest problem. It was time to try Gmail.

My first week on Gmail was disorienting. Gmail really is quite different from Outlook and other desktop email applications. There are two main features in Gmail that at first seem strange but once you get them you'll never go back. Conversation threading is one and the lack of folders is the other.

Conversations - When you send or receive email in Gmail all replies are connected to each other as a conversation. This provides the prior context for every email conversation. Before Gmail, if I couldn't remember exactly what had been said in a past email, I'd have to go search through my old email folders and try to piece together the conversation. With Gmail, every part of the conversation thread is connected to the original email for easy reference.

Whenever I talk to people about their favorite Gmail features, threaded conversations are always at the top of their list. They make Gmail far more efficient than its desktop predecessors. I find it especially helpful when someone responds to a very old email. It's so hard to remember an original email weeks or months after I've sent it. But when I see exactly what I had sent in the conversation thread, replying is much easier.



No Folders - The next major difference in Gmail is its lack of folders. When I first set up my account I spent several minutes trying to locate the folders. I finally asked one of the guys who had been using Gmail for awhile and he told me that there aren't any. I was flabbergasted! How in the world was I supposed to organize and keep track of all my old email?

Gmail does offer labels instead of folders. But I soon discovered that with Gmail folders simply weren't needed. That's because of Gmail's powerful and super fast search capability--it is driven by Google after all. With Outlook or other desktop email clients, searching through old email was painfully slow. Gmail's search is practically instantaneous. To find an archived email I just search using the name of person I sent to, or any words I remember using in the email. I've been doing this for nineteen months and I've never had any trouble quickly pulling up any old email. I don't use folders (or labels) and I can get to all my email extremely fast (and each one is threaded with the entire conversation to boot!).

Once you get over some of Gmail's differences and experience its benefits you'll see why it's become so popular. But it's as you use it over time that you'll start to realize you're using email differently. For example, it's much easier to manage inbox clutter with Gmail. In part, due to Gmail's storage allotment and archive features.

Archive/Storage Space - In Outlook I waited as long as possible before deleting or storing an email. If there was any chance I might need an email on hand, I'd leave it in my inbox. This made for an ever growing inbox. But with Gmail I only delete the most irrelevant emails. I archive everything else. Currently Gmail provides over 6GB of storage. And it's continually growing. I'm using about 15% of my allotment and since the allotment grows with use, I've never topped 20%. Since I don't need to worry about space, I just archive everything.

When I archive an email I don't add it to an organizational folder I simply click "archive." To get back to an email I just use any words I remember from the email like "mark nashville." Plus, if someone replies to an archived email it comes right back into my inbox, along with the whole conversation. I'm much freer with archiving email now, and that helps to keep an uncluttered inbox.

One other facet of Gmail's archiving and storage is performance. You'd think that a web-based application would be much slower than a desktop email client like Outlook or Apple Mail. But when a desktop client gets bloated with lots of email, it can get really slow. Slow to open, slow to search, slow to filter, just plain slow.

Gmail is really fast regardless of how much email you might have in your archive. And as already mentioned, its search capability is blazing fast.

To me, the biggest benefit of Gmail is being able to access all my email from any computer, anywhere in the world. My email follows me wherever I go. I can access it at the office, at home, at a client's location, at the business center at the hotel, and on my phone.

Gmail can be accessed through any cell phone that has a basic web browser. Google has built cell phone software for many generic handsets, and it has fantastic options for the Blackberry and the iPhone. Seriously, having every email you've ever sent or received on your phone is awesome. I've used Gmail on my Treo to do look up travel reservation numbers, phone numbers, client contact info, or anything in my email or contact list. Once, when arriving really late after a delayed flight, I was able to look up a reservation confirmation email to get in touch with my hotel and arrange for transportation.

Gmail's spam filters are excellent. I've had the same email address for over ten years. I use it freely in signing up for all sorts of web services and newsletters. I do get a little bit of spam, but compared to any other email solution I've used, Google's spam filter is by far the best. And when I flag spam that does slips through, Google quickly learns to filter it out.

This newsletter is about Gmail but I could also write newsletters about Google Calendar, Google Readers, Google Spreadsheets and Docs, and Google Talk (among others). I'm not going to go into these now, but Gmail integrates amazingly well with these other tools. For example, if the content of an email contains an event, even in natural text like "Hey Mark, let's grab lunch at noon next Thursday," Gmail will ask if him if he wants to add the event "lunch" on Thursday, February 7th at 12:00pm. One click and the event is in his Google Calendar.

Same thing with Google Maps. Any address information in an email will ask if you want to view a Google Map of the address in the content. Pretty darn efficient.

I sympathize with those of you who resist Instant Messaging. I adopted IM kicking and screaming. I just didn't want to be bleeped at all day. But just like all these newfangled modes of communication, Instant Messaging is the right tool for the right job at the right time. Once I adjusted to IM I saw how helpful it can be. If used properly (and sparingly) it is a way to avoid interruption and delay rather than adding to it. For example, if someone really does need to ask me something, and their progress is dependent on my response, IM can be the perfect tool. If I'm on the phone or at my home office a quick IM can be responded to much easier than a phone call, a personal intrusion, or email that might not be checked right away. IM allows me to provide a quick and timely answer, improving the efficiency of our team.

Here's a golden tip if you're thinking of using IM: Most IM clients, including Google Talk, allow you to set your availability status. Always leave it green or "available" even when you're not. That way people can never tell if you're actually available or if you just left the "available" setting on. This provides plausible deniability of any particular IM. If you really can't be bothered with a particular IM, you can just ignore it. Warning: this tactic does not work in the office when people can see you at your desk. Then you need to feign unconsciousness.

Gmail seamlessly integrates with Google Talk. Every IM conversation is saved in Gmail just like emails. You can search past IMs in the same way that you can search for emails. And by viewing past chats in Gmail, the calendar and map links work the same way as with email.

So far, the only negative comment I've received about Gmail is that they do not have an option for a formatted signature file. Email signatures can be set under the general settings tab but the signature can only contain plain text. I suppose that might be a problem for some people but since I've always used a text signature I didn't even notice the absence of this option.

There is a work around for this. It's a bit of an advanced solution and requires the Firefox browser, but by installing the Firefox Greasemonkey ad-on and installing the Gmail HTML Signatures script you can set up formatted Gmail signatures.
The other main criticism of Gmail is its contextual (sort of) advertisements that display along side email messages. Honestly, I don't even see these ads anymore. I can't imagine how effective they are since they're so innocuous, but for me, it's a very small price to pay for all the improvements to email.

The only other concern expressed about Gmail is the fact that all your mail is stored online at Google. Some people feel uneasy about security and also about the idea of Google holding all your email. Personally, as I mentioned earlier, I feel more secure on Google's servers and network than I do on my own computer. And as far as privacy goes, all email is stored on an outside server somewhere, at least until you download it. And then, as it moves across the Internet onto your computer, it's all visible to anyone with the wherewithal to sniff it out. If you're still concerned about privacy, Gmail can be accessed using https://mail.google.com/mail in order to read and send email over a secure, encrypted connection. All things considered, in my opinion, I feel Google is a safe and secure email system.

Under the setting tab in Gmail you'll find lots of advanced options and tools. You can set up filters to handle certain kinds of email messages based on their sender or content. You can turn off some of the optional elements like Web Clips (which are like contextual news).

You can also configure Gmail to pull email from multiple email accounts. I've set my email accounts to just re-direct all my email to my Gmail account. Another option is to use IMAP. IMAP synchs your Gmail with another email account allowing you to maintain your email in more than one place. When I first started using Gmail I had my email re-direct from my old email box but kept a copy in my old account too. Occasionally, I would download my email into Outlook so I'd have it in two places--just in case. I turned that off after awhile. I've had no problems with Gmail; it's been very dependable. I no longer feel the need to have a "backup" to Gmail.

I've also added a few Firefox add-ons to Gmail. One is called "Better GMail". It adds attachment indicator icons to my messages. It also adds an icon that, when clicked, pulls up every email I've ever sent or received from the person who sent the email.

Recently, I've added the "Remember The Milk" task manager to my Gmail page. This is a simple to-do list application that sits right next to my Gmail inbox. There are many other Gmail add-ons (especially for Firefox). Lifehacker has a good list of some of the most popular.

If I've convinced you to give Gmail a try, be sure to adjust the "Send mail as" setting under the "Accounts" tab in "Settings." Your outbound email ought to show your professional email address that uses your company's domain. Just add your official email address to the "Send mail as" option and all the outbound email from Gmail will carry your official business email address for the "sent from" and "reply to" addresses.

Considering how important email is to our daily lives, and how much time we spend using it, a better, more efficient approach is welcome. There are quantifiable efficiencies to be gained by using Gmail, so it's well worth the transition time. So go ahead, make the jump to Gmail. Give it a few days and you'll never go back.