Yahoo Mail, the beta Web-based email program, is better than Gmail - so says the WSJ's Walt Mossberg. He notes:
"The new Yahoo Mail is far superior to Gmail. Yahoo more closely matches the desktop experience most serious email users have come to expect. Gmail, by contrast, is quirky and limited."
He goes on to say:
"On several key issues, Google's engineers have decreed that familiar email practices are no longer useful, and have substituted approaches they prefer, arrogantly denying users any choice."
He cites the lack of choice around the 'conversation' mode that Gmail uses to display emails. Personally I really like that mode, because it produces a less cluttered interface and I can keep track of conversations far easier. Also I think Gmail's search functionality is a brilliant implementation of Google's famous Web search user experience, only with email data.
Paul Kedrosky agreed with Mossberg - he thinks there's an "arrogant software design ethos underlying Gmail".
But I think Mossberg takes his premise that web email must "look and work like regular desktop programs" a bit too far. Gmail was responsible for some fantastic innovation in how email can be experienced on the Web, so I don't think we should knock Google for that. Is it arrogant to experiment with new forms of Web functionality in an email application, rather than try and replicate desktop app functionality? I prefer to think it's innovative. I'm not one to defend Google that often, but I really can't see much evidence of a lack of user choice in Gmail.
Having said that, I haven't yet tried the new Yahoo Mail. So perhaps it is better than Gmail. Anyone from Yahoo care to send me a beta invite? ;-)
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Nice article for picking up on this emotive issue around web based email richard.
I too have not tried the beta yahoo email, but am unlikely to enjoy it as it uses that desktop email design pattern. I don't even like the Outlook style of email personally, it's to inneficient for my purposes.
Gmail on the other hand is super fast in getting through tons on mail (I always have tons, due to mail lists etc...). The fact that it handles threads as conversations also helps speeed things up. Gmail is also designed to be used on the web, it was re-thought rather than a re-hash of an existing and perhaps less approriate paradigm. Gmail also has some good quick keys that match my expectations from the old cli world (pine vs elm etc..).
I would also add that gmail is designed to be advertised with, which also adds a unique flavour. My only real criitsism of gmail is the difficuly deleting stuff, I don't need it often but when i do I need it close by and not hidden away.
Probably the biggest aid to Gmail's design sucess and simplicity is its search function. This is so good that the old hiearchy of folders is just not required and labels are there for those individual grouping needs.
Just my $0.02
regards
Al
Posted by: Al | September 22, 2005 1:52 AM
Well said Al. I particularly liked this point you made: "[Gmail] was re-thought rather than a re-hash of an existing and perhaps less approriate paradigm."
Posted by: Richard MacManus | September 22, 2005 3:27 AM
I think Gmail is the first serious improvement in email reading experience in years! Current interfaces just weren't designed to deal with a reality where we have to parse/reply/file hundreds of emails a day, while wearing several different hats. Now if there was a version I could run on my own servers, with less fantastically bad spam filter, I'd be really happy.
Another term for "arrogant software" is "opinionated software", which everyone is falling over themselves to congratulate 37sigs/DHH for.
Posted by: kellan | September 22, 2005 7:16 AM
Mossberg goes too far with this "arrogant" business. How is it arrogant for a company to design a free email service the way it sees fit? If the users don't like it they can simply use something else!
Even assuming the new Yahoo is as wonderful as Mossberg says it is, Gmail still has many plusses: the ads are less obtrusive, and it offers many features free that Yahoo charges for (e.g. POP access, forwarding, custom "From:" address, no promotional taglines.)
I can understand if Mossberg prefers Yahoo, but it seemed to me he was intent on issuing ridiculous broadsides against Gmail and Google. Come on, "arrogant"?
Posted by: Omari | September 22, 2005 11:12 AM
More needs to be made of the fact that the new Yahoo! Mail (which I have NOT checked out) is the result of their acquisition of OddPost. OddPost had an awesome web-based email product that emulated the desktop. I found this to be most impressive. However, I find Gmail to be even more useful than I ever thought OddPost to be. I don't need a portable Outlook in my web browser; I need something lightweight, flexible and useful. That's what Gmail is.
Posted by: Mark | September 22, 2005 11:19 AM
Also--WM tends to praise Apple OS X releases when they come out for being a superior user experience and serving the needs of "serious" computer users. But wait--what about the "standard" Windows experience that unSwitched "serious" computers know so well? Why, doesn't that make Apple arrogant in their interface design?
Gmail did search differently than anyone. They added relevance, made it work well, the majority now turns to it and the competitors emulate it. "Serious email users" succumb to a frightful dearth of garbage and messages. Gmail is an attempt to make that manageable and, as others have attributed here, it works.
Posted by: Mark | September 22, 2005 11:29 AM