Gmail

- Developer: Google
- Named Google Mail in Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom
- Automatically saves contact information when sending to an unknown sender
- Private beta opened April 1, 2004
- Public beta release on February 7, 2007
- Provides over 4 GB of free storage

Gmail is a free e-mail host developed by Google that first began as a beta release and you needed an invitation to join, but as of 2007 Google has opened it up to the public and you no longer need an invitation to join. Gmail users were first allowed 1GB of storage for e-mails and it has now jumped up to several gigabytes, which has caused many other free services such as Hotmail and [[Yahoo!]] to up their free mail storage allowances.
Outage

On February 24, 2009, Gmail was unavailable for hours sending the tech world into a frenzy. A Gmail representative issued a statement saying "A number of users are having difficulty accessing Gmail and we're working to resolve the problem. We know how important Gmail is to users so we are taking this very seriously and we apologize for any inconvenience caused..."guardian: Gmail fails: Tech world grinds to a halt(February 24, 2009)
Features

Gmail is a very robust e-mail client and offers many of the major features needed to get work done. For example, you can set up Gmail to redirect the mail it receives to another e-mail client or just delete the e-mail entirely or archive it. Gmail also automatically saves all the contacts e-mail addresses that you send an e-mail to, so there is no need to remember someone's e-mail address. Gmail also integrates with AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk to allow you to communicate with your contacts from the Gmail page.
Criticism

One of the main ways Google makes revenue from Gmail is by offering contextual ads in the e-mails. This has raised privacy concerns since the advertisers could possibly scan the e-mail without their knowledge. Gmail also uses a web interface only, which could possibly allow someone to read your e-mail if they are tracking you.
Competitors

Because of Google's offer to give free e-mail storage to anyone, it has received stiff competition from other companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo. This competition forces each of these companies to increase their storage space and features in order to compete with each other.