
How Gmail Happened (2014) - kanishkdudeja
http://time.com/43263/gmail-10th-anniversary/
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adzm
Let's not forget the Outlook web team who pretty much started the whole
ajax/web2.0 thing in the first place with IXMLHttpRequest.

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telesilla
What was their initial impetus for this? I'm curious what functionality they
were trying achieve.

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tomcam
Interactive web pages-exactly what it’s used for in GMail. It was given the
name XMLHttpRequest because it was a last-minute addition and the only way to
get a feature into Internet Explorer that late in the product cycle was to
make it XML-related. Which it obviously wasn’t, but that was how to get it
approved. Source: Was a Microsoft employee at the time, though not on the IE
team.

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johnchristopher
I always wondered. What happened to the team behind start.com ? At the time I
thought it could have been a golden brand and the realization was slick, I
remember reading they had a lot of freedom to experiment.

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tomcam
Like Sidewalk, Mungo Park, and any number of initiatives it was managed into
extinction by political ineptness.

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projectileboy
I _still_ miss Sidewalk. For a lovely couple of years, you could rely on
quality reviews of everything in your hometown.

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tomcam
It could have totally owned much of the space now occupied by Yelp and
Craigslist. A true class act Bill pulled the plug on far too early. One of his
most egregious mistakes IMHO.

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alfonsodev
For all people involved in side projects, this quote is something to remember.

>"One of the lessons I learned from that was just in terms of my own
psychology, that it was important that I always have a working product. The
first thing I do on day one is build something useful, then just keep
improving it."

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sandworm101
I was just reading something about all the defunct and abandoned google
projects. So now "How Gmail Happened" reads to me like gmail too is done and
gone, something that happened in the past but is no longer happening. I guess
that day will come eventually. Maybe tomorrow? I never know what google is
thinking when it comes to cancellations.

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jayalpha
Gmail is likely there to stay. Nevertheless you should always use your own
domain (is this still possible for free with Gmail?). I made the move and left
Gmail for most things, except an Android account. Missing the most: Decent
search

What is bad about Webmail in general: Webmail is not email. Public Wifi Spots,
even Internet providers are more and more blocking ports.

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estebank
I do not know if it is still the case, but I believe that you can still create
a new GCE or GAE account in a custom domain which will create a new Google
Apps organization for you. You will have _one_ free email account (and can set
up _all_ other addresses to be redirected to it).

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davchana
That Google Cloud thing for custom domain email is also closed.

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estebank
Thanks for letting me know.

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dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7506270)

~~~
smnrchrds
The top comments on that thread discuss the importance of owning your email
address by way of using a custom domain, so you can move to a new providers
and not worry about losing contacts or missing emails. I fully agree with
that.

Back in 2014, both Outlook and Gmail had free family plans with custom domain
capability, but have since removed those options. Is there a good low-cost
option for custom domain email in 2019? For people who use and rely on email a
lot, Fastmail is definitely the best option, but it is too expensive for my
use case. I would like to set up custom domains for my family (5-10 people in
total) and I would like to know what is the cost-effective best practice to do
so these days.

~~~
derekp7
One option would be to set up a micro VM at AWS, or Digital Ocean, etc. to
host your mail server, with something like Squirrel Mail. Then set up your
gmail account to allow forwarding for your other email address ("send mail as"
in Settings / Accounts and Import), so that outbound mail from your private
server can be forwarded through Google's servers (so you don't get blocked by
everyone else).

This way, if Google mail goes away, you can pick up another free email
provider to relay mail through in the future (assuming everyone else also
allows "send mail as").

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hiei
Is this how your email workflow is setup?

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leowoo91
By staying in beta for 5 years

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scruffyherder
The bigger question to me is why did everyone suddenly change to using their
real names when gmail invites were no longer a thing and it opened up?

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soylentcola
Can't speak for anyone else, but I remember trying to snag a funny or hard-to-
get name during the invite period but they were all taken. For a short time I
used my common "screen name" of the time but soon after switched to
my.name@gmail.com.

I was in my mid-late 20's and If I'm being honest with myself, I think I
looked at Gmail as the webmail provider that more "savvy" or professional
people used. I wanted something I could use for both personal stuff and
professional contacts so the old silly_forum_name@yahoo.com wouldn't cut it.

Later on this would shift to using my own domain to express professionalism
but I still have my first.last@gmail address as the account all of my friends
and family use.

