Six ideas that would make Gmail better
I know that there are hundreds of thousands of people who want to have this and this and this but maybe there's a chance you read this and discuss one or more of my suggestions one day.
Number One
Account Merge: I've been one of the first Gmail customers and have been - most of the time - happy with Gmail. After finding out that (probably not that many) people's accounts have been hacked and Google didn't feel responsible, I thought about the identity problem. As I signed up there was no real obligation to fill out my profile. For the Google support it would be probably impossible to find out that I am the "owner" of the account, let's say demo@gmail.com, when someone hacked my account. I think that is the bad side of being just an "anonymous" user id.
As you opened Google Apps to the audience I immediately switched to Google Apps with my own domain. I have several domain names, by the way. I felt more secure - if someone hacks my account, I could switch MX records and could still use my mail address. That is the good thing, the bad thing is that I would want to merge my Gmail account demo@gmail.com with my demo@domain.com account. I know there is a possibility to set up aliases or even forward / fetch mails from one account to another.
Nice solution, but it's not a smart solution for me. I would prefer to have ONE account, let's say demo@gmail.com and then a SUB account demo@domain.com. When I write mails from demo@domain.com I don't want anyone to see my @gmail.com address. Also, when I chat with someone I want to choose which ID I will use. I don't want to use demo@domain.com everytime. A merge would also be great because of calendar integration, Docs intregation, etc. Too difficult with two accounts. And then I have a different Google Adsense account (demo@yahoo.com). Google customer support told me merge with another Google account. Because I have several domains and didn't want to use aliases (which are just mail aliases) I had to create more and more Google Apps accounts. All together I maybe have ten accounts. No, really, it's too much. You just HAVE to provide a possibility to merge accounts.
Number Two
Colors: As I said, I like Gmail, but it's a pain in the a... to look at the colors. Please, please, provide a simple possibility to change the colors. No themes. I don't need more graphics. I switched from Yahoo and HoTMaiL to Gmail because Gmail was plain simple, but please provide a possibility to change the color from a (in my opinion) terrible looking green/blue to other colors. By the way, I prefer simple grey! Bright and darker grey.
Number Three
Chat intregation: AIM support is already great, but not that many people use AIM anymore (unfortunately!), MSN and Yahoo are more interesting.
Number Four
Provide an address book: I know you have a contact manager, but it's not an address book. I know it's so much IN to have social networking integration everywhere, in a year or two probably people even share their mailboxes on the internet lol, but there some users who don't need all that. It should be optional. An address book should be an address book. I want to put MY contacts in the address book, not the ones that Google thinks are important for me. An address book for ME is Yahoo's address book. That is a real address book. I can store all my informations about someone and another important thing: I can access the address book very easy without opening my mails. http://addressbook.someurl.tld/ that's it.
Number Six
Provide better Opera support: I cannot understand why you two companies can't work together to develop an Opera compatible version that looks like the one when you open Internet Explorer or Firefox. I've been a long time Opera user, had to switch to Firefox (which I just hate because it's even in the RC3 slower as Opera 5 years ago) just to be able to use Gmail. There are not hundreds of millions of Opera users, I understand that well, but even for the hundreds of thousands of people there should be a solution. Right now you force them to switch to IE or FF or to use different mail services.
Thanks for your time.
Number One
Account Merge: I've been one of the first Gmail customers and have been - most of the time - happy with Gmail. After finding out that (probably not that many) people's accounts have been hacked and Google didn't feel responsible, I thought about the identity problem. As I signed up there was no real obligation to fill out my profile. For the Google support it would be probably impossible to find out that I am the "owner" of the account, let's say demo@gmail.com, when someone hacked my account. I think that is the bad side of being just an "anonymous" user id.
As you opened Google Apps to the audience I immediately switched to Google Apps with my own domain. I have several domain names, by the way. I felt more secure - if someone hacks my account, I could switch MX records and could still use my mail address. That is the good thing, the bad thing is that I would want to merge my Gmail account demo@gmail.com with my demo@domain.com account. I know there is a possibility to set up aliases or even forward / fetch mails from one account to another.
Nice solution, but it's not a smart solution for me. I would prefer to have ONE account, let's say demo@gmail.com and then a SUB account demo@domain.com. When I write mails from demo@domain.com I don't want anyone to see my @gmail.com address. Also, when I chat with someone I want to choose which ID I will use. I don't want to use demo@domain.com everytime. A merge would also be great because of calendar integration, Docs intregation, etc. Too difficult with two accounts. And then I have a different Google Adsense account (demo@yahoo.com). Google customer support told me merge with another Google account. Because I have several domains and didn't want to use aliases (which are just mail aliases) I had to create more and more Google Apps accounts. All together I maybe have ten accounts. No, really, it's too much. You just HAVE to provide a possibility to merge accounts.
Number Two
Colors: As I said, I like Gmail, but it's a pain in the a... to look at the colors. Please, please, provide a simple possibility to change the colors. No themes. I don't need more graphics. I switched from Yahoo and HoTMaiL to Gmail because Gmail was plain simple, but please provide a possibility to change the color from a (in my opinion) terrible looking green/blue to other colors. By the way, I prefer simple grey! Bright and darker grey.
Number Three
Chat intregation: AIM support is already great, but not that many people use AIM anymore (unfortunately!), MSN and Yahoo are more interesting.
Number Four
Provide an address book: I know you have a contact manager, but it's not an address book. I know it's so much IN to have social networking integration everywhere, in a year or two probably people even share their mailboxes on the internet lol, but there some users who don't need all that. It should be optional. An address book should be an address book. I want to put MY contacts in the address book, not the ones that Google thinks are important for me. An address book for ME is Yahoo's address book. That is a real address book. I can store all my informations about someone and another important thing: I can access the address book very easy without opening my mails. http://addressbook.someurl.tld/ that's it.
Number Six
Provide better Opera support: I cannot understand why you two companies can't work together to develop an Opera compatible version that looks like the one when you open Internet Explorer or Firefox. I've been a long time Opera user, had to switch to Firefox (which I just hate because it's even in the RC3 slower as Opera 5 years ago) just to be able to use Gmail. There are not hundreds of millions of Opera users, I understand that well, but even for the hundreds of thousands of people there should be a solution. Right now you force them to switch to IE or FF or to use different mail services.
Thanks for your time.
10
people like this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
Create a customer community for your own organization
Plans starting at $19/month
-
Inappropriate?hey, that address book site you mentioned happens to be a porn site.
Idea no. 2 has already been addressed. There are themes without any graphics available too.
Idea no. 4 is greatly needed, and fast. I hope Google is working on it as I type this.
I’m undecided
-
Can’t stop laughin... well the URL was an example... didn’t know that it would exist. Sorry :-o -
Oopsy. I changed this for you. Thanks for the email! -
Inappropriate?Thanks for the great list. I can address some of the points:
2. Colours. It sounds like the 'Minimalist' theme is for you. It happens to be the one I use.
3. Chat integration. I have no internal information about this, however there is a line on Wikipedia which may be relevant:
"Windows Live Messenger 2009 is expected to improve multi-client support, adding Google Talk, AOL, ICQ and Jabber to the list."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Mess...
Again, I stress that this is just something floating around on the 'net.
5. Nothing. Non-existent and unspecified features may be accessed using the URL: about:blank
6. Opera. Yes, both companies do work together (when something breaks sometimes it's our fault, sometimes it's their's). And we do have Opera fanatics on staff.
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
Nice one, Neil. Thanks! -
Inappropriate?I'm with Marco on number one.
I have been using Gmail since the beginning of times. I have had my own domain a bit longer. Since I prefer Googles services, I forward mail from my own domain to my Gmail account, and do so for my wife and oldest son as well.
Today I would like to move our domain to Google Apps, to benefit from the advantages and ease the integration of the next two children. However the 3 existing Gmail users of us, would like to keep our mailbox, calendars and so on, hence the need to merge accounts.
The simplest merge would be beneficial to our needs: Just make the Google app and the Gmail account point to the same data. That would take care of our needs. The ideas of choosing which account to chat etc. from are nice, but not essential from my part.
Neil, are you able to shed some light on whether this is a feature that you are planning?
TIA
/morten
-
Inappropriate?I also see 6 disadvantages of Web-GMail compared with Thunderbird/Outlook/AOL mail.
If Google could improve these 6 disadvantages, that would make Gmail better in my opinion.
Details see:
http://getsatisfaction.com/google/top...
I’m frustrated
Loading Profile...




EMPLOYEE
