Gmail at No. 3 spot: What is its USP?

Gmail is the mail service from the search leader, Google. The service was initially launched as an invite based subscription but with course of time, it was made free.

Initially, Gmail was launched in 2004 as an invitation-only application, but it became available to the common people in 2007. As of July 2009, the application has about 146 million users monthly.

Gmail is the fastest-growing e-mail service in the world, but with recent figures revealed, it has to go a long way to catch Yahoo's still-growing market share. Dragging down AOL and narrowly following Hotmail, Gmail has been reported to reach the third slot.

Gmail updates

The service had been in Beta for five long years. It was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps suite including Calendar, Docs and Talk. Initially, it offered 1 GB storage per user, but now it provides over 7350 MB of free storage with additional storage ranging from 10 GB to 400 GB available for $20 to $500 per year.

Google is gearing to add new features and services to make Apps more appealing to corporate customers. Pulling off the beta tag will however, attract business users as now Google Apps will find the software solid enough to use.

The new services include e-mail delegation allowing IT staff to screen and send e-mail on behalf of others; e-mail retention, live replication of corporate data and "special handling" of corporate data in Google data centers.

What's new in Gmail?

1. Tasks: It is available in Gmail, Google Calendar, iGoogle and also on your mobile phone. Just click "Tasks" (which is above your chat list) and type to add new tasks, set due dates or add notes. Your task list stays up-to-date no matter how you access it and you can check or edit the task easily.

2. Languages: Now you can access Gmail in various local languages including Hindi.

3. Undo send: Now you have few seconds grace time to cancel any sent mail.

4. Attachments: Gmail provides you attachment limit of upto 20 MB. Now, enjoy more home videos, large presentations and files sharing.

5. Drag and drop labels: For easy access, you can now drag labels onto messages and messages into labels, just like folders.

6. YouTube, Picasa, Flickr and Yelp previews: With Gmail, you can now enjoy previews of photos, videos and reviews, instead of links.

7. Work Offline: Now, users can access Gmail offline by switching on the offline access.

8. Mobile Gmail: Gmail is now available on iPhone with auto-complete feature and has faster load times when viewing email. It also features free IMAP, so that you can sync your inbox across devices instantly and automatically.

9. Gmail on Android: It is now available on the T-Mobile G1, the world's first Android-powered phone. You can read and even push email as you do on your PC.

10. Get mail from other accounts: You can retrieve your new and old mails from up to five other email accounts and have them all in Gmail. Further, you can even create a customized 'From:' address, which lets you send messages from Gmail, but have them look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts.