Googlemail to become Gmail in UK

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From the BBC news website - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10096107.stm

Google had faced similar disputes in Germany, Poland and Russia. British e-mail users with Google accounts are now able to change the end of their addresses from @googlemail.com to @gmail.com.

A five year trademark dispute meant that Google was not allowed to use the name Gmail in the UK.

In 2005 a company called Independent International Investment Research claimed it had used "Gmail" first.

Google claimed at the time that the settlement IIR asked for was "exorbitant" and dropped the name.

Within a year of launching the free e-mail service in the UK, Gmail became Google Mail.

While early adopters received a gmail.com address, all subsequent new accounts were given the suffix googlemail.com.

"Since 'gmail' is 50% fewer characters than 'googlemail' we estimate this name change will save approximately 60 million keystrokes a day," wrote software engineer Greg Bullock on Google's Gmail blog.

British users with Googlemail addresses will be asked whether they wish to change their address. It will not affect the settings or functionality of the accounts, Google said.

The firm is not releasing the details of the new settlement but states that the matter is "happily resolved".

 

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That would be true... if people actually typed the e-mail address every single time they sent an e-mail message. Most people simply hit the reply button, select an entry from their address book or contact list, or let whatever messaging software they use autocomplete it for them.

 

both of my accounts are gmail.com in the uk.

 

Yup, I was thinking that too. I bet that guy still got paid for coming up with his little gem though.

 

Did you know that 79% of statistics are made up on the spot?

 

... and 92.45% are complete BS.

 

What about all the keystrokes saved when users are logging in to Googlemail / Gmail?

If you're security-conscious you may not have it remembering the credentials, and therefore have to type in the whole email address every time you log in?

Perhaps this is what he meant?

49.95% of users do this*

* Another invented statistic

 

What, you don't stay logged in all the time?

 

With two kids in the house, would you?

 

Only 68.4% of users stay logged in.

31.6% have two or more kids.



Hey this statistic thing is fun.

 

Yep... they know better than to mess with Daddy's computer. Plus, my computer locks down after being unattended for a few minutes.

 

So 50% of the members sampled on here save their login credentials

 

Good point but alas ... you don't have to provide your full email address to log into gmail. Just the prefix before the @ symbol.

 

I never noticed that before - it hasn't always been like that, has it?

Answering your own questions is a sign of madness I believe

IIRC when they first started using googlemail you needed to log in using the full address, but if you had a gmail address you didn't.

All those wasted keystrokes...

 

I've had both a gmail & googlemail account from early on in both cases and have always just logged in with my username rather than the full address. Dunno if other people weren't able to do that, hmm a mystery perhaps!

 

17% of people that answer their own questions are truly mad, 69% are just faking it and 14% haven't made up their minds yet.