Gmail/History
Template:Gmail On March 31, 2004 Google said they would release a free e-mail account with 1,000 Megabytes (1GB) for every user. Many thought it was a April Fool's joke, but it wasn't. It was like no other e-mail system ever made. Its special features include:
- A new type of folder system where a single copy of an email can exist in multiple folders.
- Based on JavaScript.
- Google-powered search engine.
- Email Content-sensitive advertising
- 20851 megabytes (and counting) of storage (11-May 2007, 13:30)
- Powerful spam filtering
- An innovative mail threading interface
More
On Gmail's 1st birthday, Google gave every Gmail user 2GBs of space and it's increasing with every second.
It is calculated that megabytes are added to Gmail's storage capacity at a rate of 0.000032470826991374936580416032470827 megabytes per second, or , which is exactly equal to 1GB/year.
Originally, the invitations were sent out to a relatively small number of 'elite' internet users, and some journalists. The journalists could review the email service, and in the process create quite a buzz about the service.
Then these users were given different numbers of invites, so they could invite their friends. These were each also given invites, and so on. In this way, the service trickled out to the internet masses.
Now, there are enough invites for the service to be effectively open to anyone.