Google's webmail, announced on 1 April 2004 with a gigabyte of free storage at a time when rivals offered two to four megabytes and charged for more. Because of the date, a good part of the internet assumed it was a joke. The record's entry for the April Fool that turned out to be the email address everyone still has.
For most of 2004 you could only join by invitation, and invitations were traded. Someone on a forum sent me one in return for nothing. I still use the address. It has outlasted the forum, the person and the modem.
The record notes the gallery's arithmetic: 1,000 megabytes against 2 to 4. That is not an improvement; it is a different category, and the disbelief on 1 April 2004 was the correct response to the numbers.
Seen in the gallery: 'Don't blame folks for being skeptical at first.' The record does not blame them and notes that some of the folks are still sceptical, for different reasons.
The record notes the gigabyte was the whole announcement. Search inside your mail, conversations in threads, no need to delete anything: all of it followed from having somewhere to put it.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
