Gmail vs. Yahoo
I have been a satisfied (actually “Delighted!”) Google mail (Gmail) user and advocate for over a year. I’ve fallen head over heels in love with Gmail’s minimalist style, where it does just enough to get the job done.
Although some smart people don’t seem to get it, Gmail’s “search don’t sort” philosophy is simple and powerful compared with traditional folder based message stores.
But I love to try new stuff. I’m a pathological early adopter. You know where this is going, right? I am struggling with a decision: should I even try the new Yahoo Mail? Wait a minute, it’s in beta and I have not been invited. So this discussion should all be in the future tense.
Even so, if I were hypothetically given a Yahoo mail invite, will I invest the time to check out Yahoo mail?
In a word, “no.”
I am married to Google, at least for email. My vows said, “Forsaking all others…” and “through sickness and health, until death do us part.”
That’s cute, but there’s an even better reason to be faithful (to Gmail). I believe competition works. If Yahoo (nee Oddpost) delivers genuinely Great Things, that army of bright people at Google can sort out the key features and modify Gmail so it remains simple and powerful and highly functional.
The Gmail team needs to beef up Gmail contacts, big time. They need to make searching more flexible so I can qualify a search when that makes sense.
I simply love Gmail the way it is. I do NOT want to return to “mail folder hell.” A little lipstick or eye shadow would be OK. But please, no botox and don’t even consider a nose job.
November 8th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
kudos to you! i love the commitment! :)
after being a Yahoo! Plus subscriber for quite a few years - I’m quite happy I switched over to Google Mail - just discovering all the nuggets of the new minimalistic paradigm you elude to has been so much fun…just discovered the trick! :)
that said, the Google team has a tough job to sort out all the feature requests.
I personally still look fwd to email/task like integration and in the meantime, trying to be clever with labels :)
Has anyone out there compiled “Gmail usage models?” - no hits on Google ;-)
November 10th, 2005 at 6:43 am
[...] While I’m very happy (as in “in love!”) with Google mail (Gmail), I keep my eyes open. Today I signed up with LaszloMail. I’ve been following Open Laszlo, because it’s a mildly interesting attempt at creating an open source rich client. So what better way to check it out than to experiment with a Laszlo mail client? [...]
November 13th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Well Yahoo! mail beta looks impressive, but it seems to lack features that Gmail is offering. POP & mail forwarding have been the most amazing features of Gmail for me. Y! offers these after you subscribe to Y! delivers, which sucks. Why can’t Yahoo! give these services without any fuss like Gmail? The advertisements are annoying, Gmail rocks in tht case.
Yahoo rocks with it’s support to RTF. Using images as signatures is a very exciting feature offered by Y! mail. Not sure about Y! mail beta, but I don’t expect any new features, compared to GMail. GMail ability to handle attachments is good, though I’m not impressed by Gmail in this case since while sending emails, the attachments are uploaded and sent simultaneously.
Y! mail beta has a better interface than Gmail. Gmail seems a little less secure with it’s vast use of Javascript - dunno about Y! beta. For now, I’m happy with GMail. But I might make the switch to Y! beta just for it’s vast Rich Text Formatting support…….will have to see what else is on offer at Y!.
July 7th, 2006 at 6:54 am
I am really not crazy about either Gmail or Yahoo personally. Yahoo especially keeps including an error message each and every time I use it that seems to be sent by Internet Explorer. Further, it has some strange message that says there is no “SOAP-ENV” and something about a payload sent to the server?? I have no clue what it is, but I have to close this stupid window each time I try to get into my mail, and it’s really annoying.