Google has had mixed successes with social networks before. Orkut never caught on in the United States; a much-hyped demo of something called SocialStream was never realized. Today, Google begins rolling out Buzz, a social network that lives entirely inside Gmail.
posted by Rory Marinich on Feb 9, 2010 - 190 comments

Google began inviting volunteers to a public preview test of their new Wave web-based collaborative email and document communications platform yesterday, which enables users to "communicate and work together in real time." Initial reviews this past May seemed positive. (Previously) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Oct 1, 2009 - 75 comments

Why do we have to live with divides between different types of communication? Introducing Google Wave. [more inside]
posted by CunningLinguist on May 28, 2009 - 139 comments

GMail not-so-safe Mail. So apparentley GMail has a major exploit that's been discovered by an Israeli hacker. "Using a hex-encoded XSS link, the victim's cookie file can be stolen by a hacker, who can later use it to identify himself to Gmail as the original owner of an email account, regardless of whether or not the password is subsequently changed." And so the fun with GMail begins..
posted by mrplab on Oct 29, 2004 - 9 comments

Yahoo! Mail is trashing Gmail invites. Regular Gmail appears in the inbox, but invites are sorted to the spam folder.
posted by tranquileye on Jun 22, 2004 - 53 comments

Yahoo feels the heat. Yahoo webmail users logged in this morning to find that they suddenly have mailboxes with 100MB capacity, can send emails up to 5MB in size, and have a much nicer-looking interface.
posted by bingo on Jun 15, 2004 - 53 comments

Gmail is too Creepy "Dear Gmail user: Due to privacy considerations, we cannot respond unless you resend your email from a different account."
posted by o2b on Jun 10, 2004 - 53 comments

What would you swap for a gmail account? "Everyone's talking about Gmail, but it's still only a handful of lucky ducks who have snagged an account. And while the rest of us go hungry, you can be sure that the best email addresses are being gulped down by nefarious hooligans. gmail swap tells the people with Gmail about the people without."
posted by dogmatic on May 17, 2004 - 105 comments

Gmail: Google's newest service. They're claiming 1Gb of free email, killer spam filters, and a great new webmail interface. They'll likely have Google ads attached to your messages, but I can't wait to see it tomorrow (hopefully it's not just an April Fools prank).
posted by mathowie on Mar 31, 2004 - 108 comments

CNN reports that Google is developing email ad service. As if I don't get enough spam in my inbox! Google, please don't turn evil... please.
posted by crankydoodle on Jan 19, 2004 - 11 comments

Zoë is Google for your inbox (and outbox, too). It's written in Java and actually works on a number of platforms, using a browser-based interface. Jon Udell describes the way he uses Zoë in this O'reilly article.

But be warned: navigating through archived email from five years ago is as humbling as it is addictive.
posted by gdog on Oct 9, 2002 - 12 comments