NEW YORK – I’ve always hated Web-based e-mail.
I’ve found the interface clunky and the services constraining. (I’m an electronic pack rat who’s been chastised multiple times for exceeding storage quotas.)
Ever since I got my first post-college e-mail account in 1994, I’ve preferred software that sorts and stores, be it Netscape, Outlook Express or Mozilla’s Thunderbird.
I’m finally about ready to let go.
My change of heart goes beyond the fact that the major services have become more generous with storage. In offering 2.6 gigabytes, Google Inc.’s Gmail service even declares, “you’ll never need to delete another message.”
After testing four free services, I find I can now finally take advantage of the Web’s ubiquity and convenience without sacrificing usability – at least with three of the services.
The exception was Microsoft Corp.’s Hotmail, once a pioneer in free Web mail.
For now, the real choices are Yahoo Inc., America Online Inc.’s AIM (the free counterpart to regular AOL accounts) and Gmail.
Yahoo and AIM have Web interfaces that most resemble software.
Both let you “drag and drop” messages into folders; no longer do you need to check a box and pull some clunky “move to” function from the menu.
The one limitation is you can’t create subfolders with either. And with AIM, you must go to a separate page to create or empty folders; Yahoo has those functions easily accessible from the main page, just like desktop-based software.
AIM and Yahoo also update regularly and automatically with new messages. AIM seems to be quicker than Yahoo and as quick as Gmail.
But Yahoo, which is still in a beta test phase and available only by invitation, lets you preview messages from the main page, similar to a software experience. Yahoo also arranges messages you open into tabs for easy switching.
As for composing messages, Yahoo is slightly better in supporting rich text – such as italics – on both Internet Explorer and Firefox. AIM only offers it for IE. But Yahoo’s new interface doesn’t work at all with Opera for Windows or Safari for Mac computers, while AIM does. Yahoo’s spell checker also fails on Firefox.
Overall, I find Yahoo easier to use, and it’s quite impressive for a product that’s only weeks old. I expect even more features by the time a final version is released.
Gmail, meanwhile, is a different beast entirely.
Like Yahoo and AIM, and unlike Hotmail, Gmail automatically checks for new messages.
The similarities end there.
Gmail groups individual messages into “conversations,” using software to automatically pull together e-mail on similar subjects. That’s handy, but also annoying when the software makes mistakes. There’s no way to override.
Folders do not exist in Gmail. Everything’s dumped into the inbox and your only alternative is to move it into the archive.
However, I can add “labels” to conversations. So instead of dumping a message into a folder on “running,” I can simply label it “running.” I can add multiple labels, whereas a message can only exist in one folder without making a copy. With labels, I can organize based on both whom I’m talking with and what I’m talking about.
Google seems aware that folders are a construct of the physical world and don’t make much sense when digital objects can appear in multiple places at once. But society may not be ready for such a monumental shift in thinking.
Even as a power user, it took me awhile to get used to it. I’ve invested plenty of time teaching my parents how folders work and I’m not ready to “unteach” that.
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