Google Mail and Hosted Domains

{Disclaimer: This blog is hosted at blogger.com, owned by google.com The ads are delivered by Google's Adsense. Since I haven't received a cent in revenue from the Ads yet, and since I receive no compensation from Google at this point, I feel I can be totally unbiased in this post. However, here's the disclaimer, just in case someone wants to pick a fight. :-) }

I'm curious as to why more people don't use gmail? Okay, the lack of folder support is a tad bit annoying, but labels pretty much make up for it, and the ability to apply multiple labels to the same message is very handy. I have a gmail account, and two of my domains use Google Hosted Domains to handle mail. I really like gmail's interface, and the 6 gigs of storage is really nice too.

But I think the really killer feature of gmail is IMAP support. For those that aren't familiar with IMAP, it's a different way of delivering mail. Here's how it works. IMAP is synced with the host, no matter how I access it. Whether I use the webmail interface, my email client, my mail checking software, or the mail interface on my iPod Touch, the changes are reflected on the server.

So what does this mean in a practical way? Well, if download my mail, and then realize that something is spam, and I drag it to my spam folder in Thunderbird, it notifies the gmail server, and it also marks that message as spam. If I create a label in gmail for a message, it creates a folder for that label in my email client (and it shows up in my iPod Touch mail app). If I flag a message as important, it gets "starred" in my gmail account, and if I "star" a message in gmail, it gets flagged as important in my client.

I do have some complaints. For one thing, in gmail, I can add colors to my labels. But even though my Hosted Domains use gmail, that feature isn't available yet. I wish that my gmail contacts would sync automatically with Plaxo (right now, Plaxo can only READ my gmail contacts, not actually sync with them.) I'd like more powerful filters at the webmail interface, but I can get over that hump with filters in Thunderbird. All in all, the limitations are minor compared to the advantages.

Now if only I wasn't so weirded out by Google accessing my mail to deliver targeted ads based on the mail's contents, but it's a small price to pay for the convenience of free IMAP and the large storage capacity. And Ad delivery is the reality of the internet. Until I set up my own mail server, or pay for IMAP, I'm going to have to look at ads. And like most internet users, the ads have become almost totally transparent to me.