{"id":424924,"date":"2022-04-01T14:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/"},"modified":"2022-04-01T14:00:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T11:00:48","slug":"gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/","title":{"rendered":"#Gmail Was the Best April Fools\u2019 Day Joke of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a50b51c8d70f\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a50b51c8d70f\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/#%E2%80%9CGmail_Was_the_Best_April_Fools_Day_Joke_of_All_Time%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;Gmail Was the Best April Fools\u2019 Day Joke of All Time&#8221;<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-2' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/#Not_a_Joke\" >Not a Joke<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/#Invites_the_Forever_Beta\" >Invites &amp; the Forever Beta<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/#1GB_of_Storage_for_Free\" >1GB of Storage for Free<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/#A_Very_Successful_%E2%80%9CPrank%E2%80%9D\" >A Very Successful \u201cPrank\u201d<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CGmail_Was_the_Best_April_Fools_Day_Joke_of_All_Time%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;Gmail Was the Best April Fools\u2019 Day Joke of All Time&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"type:primaryImage size-full wp-image-795349\" data-pagespeed-lazy-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Old-Gmail-logo.png?width=398&amp;trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1 400w, https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Old-Gmail-logo.png?width=1198&amp;trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, 400w, 1200w\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Old-Gmail-logo.png?width=1198&amp;trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"Old Gmail logo.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"type:primaryImage imagecredit\">Google<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Google is one of many companies that love to join in on the April Fools\u2019 Day fun every year. However, its best April Fools\u2019 Day announcement wasn\u2019t actually a joke at all. It was a little thing called Gmail.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays, sharing serious <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> on April 1st is a good way to make people ignore it. The internet gets saturated with fake announcements and phony products. It wasn\u2019t always like this, though. This is why Google announced Gmail on April 1st, 2004.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <strong><em>How the Internet Killed April Fools&#8217; Day (and Why It Needs to Stop)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Not_a_Joke\"><\/span>Not a Joke<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Let\u2019s go back to 2004. Web-based email clients were not a new idea at this time. Hotmail and Yahoo Mail were both extremely popular.\u00a0Paul Buchheit was a developer at Google working on something called \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Google_Groups\">Google Groups<\/a>.\u201d He was asked to build an email product.<\/p>\n<p>Buchheit\u2019s first version of Gmail was created in one day based on the code from Google Groups. The goal was to create a web email service that wasn\u2019t written in plain HTML\u2014like Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. Every action required the server to reload the page, which was slow.\u00a0Buchheit worked around that by using Java<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Script<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Gmail was kept secret even from people within Google for a while.\u00a0 However, by early 2004 most people within the company were using it. Gmail was finally announced to the public on April 1st, 2004. Google made it clear that Gmail was in beta, even sticking \u201cBeta\u201d on the logo.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, some people thought the announcement was a joke. At the time, Google was only known for search and ads. An email service seemed pretty far out of left field. People soon realized it was a real product.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <strong><em>JavaScript Isn&#8217;t Java &#8212; It&#8217;s Much Safer and Much More Useful<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Invites_the_Forever_Beta\"><\/span>Invites &amp; the Forever Beta<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 580px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-795368 size-full\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Gmail_2004.png?trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"2004 Gmail interface.\" width=\"580\" height=\"512\" data-crediturl=\"https:\/\/www.shellen.com\/1gb-of-email-you-kidding-right\" data-credittext=\"Wikipedia\/Jason Shellen\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gmail in 2004. <span class=\"imagecredit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shellen.com\/1gb-of-email-you-kidding-right\">Wikipedia\/Jason Shellen<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Google didn\u2019t simply announce Gmail and allow anyone to sign up. It simply did not have the infrastructure to run Gmail with a large number of users. In fact, Gmail ran on <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/43263\/gmail-10th-anniversary\/\">three hundred old Pentium III computers<\/a> at launch.<\/p>\n<p>To kick things off, Google invited 1,000 <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a> members and other prominent figures in <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> to try it out and invite their friends and family members. These invites became highly desirable as word of Gmail spread. The 1GB of free storage was a huge selling point.<\/p>\n<p>In late April 2004, Google extended invites to active users on its Blogger platform. Invites remained in high demand. Some people were even selling their invites online. Invites would be required all the way until February 2007.<\/p>\n<p>However, the \u201cbeta\u201d tag was still there. Gmail\u2019s beta status became sort of a joke. It was in beta right from the beginning in 2004 and remained in beta for five years, until July 2009. By this time Gmail was already very popular and hadn\u2019t felt like a \u201cbeta\u201d product for some time.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"1GB_of_Storage_for_Free\"><\/span>1GB of Storage for Free<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>When Buchheit was first working on Gmail, one of the things Google wanted was robust search capabilities. There was a very high volume of emails being sent within Google, which made search features a must.<\/p>\n<p>All of that email volume is what lead to the 1GB of free storage. It may not seem like it nowadays, but that was an incredible feature. Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and other web email services were offering around 2 to 4MB at the time. 1GB was astronomical.<\/p>\n<p>Gmail boasted a lot of great features compared to the competition, but the 1GB of free storage was what drove the demand for invites. Having that much storage\u2014for free, no less\u2014meant people could essentially keep emails forever.<\/p>\n<p>To sweeten the deal even more, Google upped the free storage to 2GB on April Fools\u2019 Day 2005\u2014another great \u201cjoke.\u201d The free storage space has continued to increase since then, sitting at 15GB of free storage in 2022. Competitors have been forced to keep up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <strong><em>How to Use Gmail&#8217;s Advanced Search Features &amp; Create Filters<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"A_Very_Successful_%E2%80%9CPrank%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>A Very Successful \u201cPrank\u201d<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"WFQQ-Qfl1s4\" style=\"background-image: url('https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/WFQQ-Qfl1s4\/hqdefault.jpg');\">\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"lty-playbtn\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"lyt-visually-hidden\">Play Video<\/span><br \/>\n<\/button>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n<p>What started as possibly a joke\u2014\u201cwhy is the search company making email?\u201d\u2014has become one of the most successful products of all time.\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/10\/26\/gmail-dominates-consumer-email-with-1point5-billion-users.html\">As of 2019<\/a>, there are 1.5 billion active Gmail users around the world. You can see Gmail\u2019s meteoric rise in the video above.<\/p>\n<p>April Fools\u2019 Day is a day of bad jokes and cringey \u201cpranks,\u201d but occasionally something good comes from it. There may never be a more universally praised and enjoyed April Fools\u2019 Day announcement than Gmail back in 2004. It\u2019s become so much more than those humble beginnings.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <strong><em>How to Make Using Gmail Better<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n setTimeout(function(){\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s) } (window, document,'script',\n  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n   fbq('init', '335401813750447');\n   fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  },3000);\n<\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/795347\/gmail-was-the-best-april-fools-day-joke-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Gmail Was the Best April Fools\u2019 Day Joke of All Time&#8221; Google Google is one of many companies that love to join in on the April Fools\u2019 Day fun every year. However, its best April Fools\u2019 Day announcement wasn\u2019t actually a joke at all. It was a little thing called Gmail. Nowadays, sharing serious news&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":424925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Old-Gmail-logo.png?height=200p&trim=2,2,2,2","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}