As I was writing my column yesterday for Blogging Tips, something dawned on me. That as much as I love Gmail, there aren’t many alternatives out there.

I wondered aloud on Twitter why there were no viable competitors for Gmail and got a slew of good responses. One of the best came from user @lance_ who said that “It takes a lot of market clout or money to get past spam filters. There isn’t a huge market for b2b & consumers already got an address.” (fixed quote for tweet-speak).

Others seemed to feel that the market was saturated while others still were quick to remind me about Microsoft Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, neither of which really hold much of a candle to Gmail in terms of features. When you consider that Gmail, for free, offers nearly unlimited space, free IMAP access, threading, powerful search, good spam filtering and more, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail look like weaklings.

Gmail is pretty much the undisputed champion right now, at least in terms of features and power, and, sadly, there is no real competition on the horizon. Yahoo! and Microsoft seem to have rolled over and other companies, like Zenbe, would rather build off of Gmail than create something truly new.

The result is that Gmail has stagnated. What was revolutionary when it was first created has slowed to a crawl. Most of the “Labs” features are either mistakes that should never have been in Gmail, such as Signature Tweaks, Title Tweaks, etc. or outright catchup with other systems, such as Canned Responses.

Gmail, which is still in beta, hasn’t blossomed and though it seems to announce new features regularly, most seem outright trivial. So where’s the competition to keep the fire hot? Where is the upstart company with a bold new vision and a competing ideal? It isn’t there.

It’s time for some competition. Time for an upstart group of rebels to really attack this issue and see what they can do. Will it be easy? No. Is it impossible? Maybe. But the future of email may depend on it.

Love for Gmail

The main reason that no one seems to have taken on this issue is because most people seem to really love their Gmail. And why not? It’s fast, its search is great, the threaded conversation feature works really well, its spam filtering is top-notch and you even get free IMAP access if you prefer to use Outlook or Thunderbird.

Gmail is, for all intents and purposes, warm buttery email goodness. I use it, my friends use it, most people I talk to use it. Everyone loves their Gmail and with good reason.

But this undying devotion to Gmail is dangerous. Sure, Gmail is great today, but is having only only one serious email provider really a good thing? Sure, Yahoo! and Hotmail both have more subscribers, but among those that take email serious, Gmail is the undisputed king and the devotion, no matter how deserved, is rabid.

To be honest and fair, Gmail got where it did by revolutionizing the way we did email back in 2004/2005. In a time where storage in Webmail services was measured in MB and deleting mail a common problem, Gmail came on the scene with GBs of storage, threaded conversations and a slick new interface. It took our current Webmail services and made them look puny and dated, even before most of us had access to Gmail.

But after its initial innovations it really hasn’t done that much. Most of the changes have been tweaks, fixes and minor improvements. Gmail became famous for its broad strokes but has, in the past four years or so, done nothing but fix some of the details.

The only broad stroke was to enable IMAP access for all accounts, a great feature, but one that has nothing to do with the Web interface. In fact, it was more of an escape for those who didn’t like what Gmail was bringing.

The kick to the stomach there though is that there hasn’t been much good done with email clients in the last five years either. Even Thunderbird has had its development stagnate, especially when compared to Firefox.

As great as Gmail is, if you find yourself dissatisfied for any reason, you’re pretty much out of luck. There are no viable replacements right now and Google is coding like they know it.

The Internet Explorer Problem

Though it is hard to imagine, there was a time when using Internet Explorer was actually cool. When it was first introduced, it was free, powerful and way ahead of Netscape, its main rival. It took market share away, inch by inch, and eventually became a de facto monopoly.

But that was when things got ugly. IE, for the most part, didn’t bother doing anything. It reached the top of the mountain and, since it wasn’t making Microsoft any money, it got treated like an unwanted stepchild.

The result was bad for the Web in every way. Though having a free and powerful browser was, at first, a good thing, it became a nightmare as Microsoft flouted Internet standards, ignored browser innovations (IE: tabbed browsing) and generally made life Hell for developers and users alike.

It wasn’t until a serious challenger, namely Firefox, came along that they began to wake up and release new versions. It’s no coincidence that a two-year release cycle stretched into 5 beginning with the release of IE 6 in 2001, roughly when IE reached the pinnacle of its market share, and that IE7 would be the one to introduce tabbed browsing, years after it had been in other browsers.

The end result was that, by introducing competition, Firefox improved the Web for everyone, including IE users.

Though I’m not saying Google is going to be as flagrant in ignoring Gmail as Microsoft was with IE, but its a simple fact that any company interested in the bottom line isn’t going to spend as much money developing something they already have a solid lead in. If there are no good threats, there’s no motivation to innovate.

In short, Gmail may be so good, that it’s bad for email.

So Where Are the Startups?

So where are these companies that can light a fire under Google? Well, I think the market may be to blame.

The problem is five-fold:

1. Market Saturation: Virtually everyone that wants an email address has one and most of us have several. Any new email system would first have to convince people to move their data over to their service, thus opening up a whole new series of headaches.
2. Startup Capital: There’s a good reason the biggest webmail systems are provided by large companies, it’s because it takes a lot of money to run one. Server costs, personnel, support, spam filtering, etc. It takes a lot more than a good front end to make a good Webmail provider and that makes it costly to run.
3. Poor Monetization: The only way to earn revenue from webmail is to either charge for pro accounts or sell ads. Gmail killed the first business model and, well, good luck with the second, in this economy especially.
4. Email Isn’t Cool: Email may be necessary, but it is so last decade. Developers and startups today want to do rich media, microblogging, social networking, instant messaging and anything with an API. As important as email is, it doesn’t get many people excited anymore.
5. Trust Factor: How is a new startup going to get users to trust them enough with all of their data AND a business-critical application? I have no idea. Any solution will have to come from an established, reputable company.

In the end, it may be that the door has been shut on email-based startups. Though some, like Postbox, are building products and services to work with Gmail, no one seems to be ready to go against it.

It’s a love fest with Gmail and it’s only a matter of time until the big “G” gets bored with the relationship.

Bottom Line

I hope that we don’t have to wait for Gmail to bottom out the way IE did before we see some competition. It would be sad to see that the move to create an alternative would be motivated more out of anger rather than a simple desire for choice.

Gmail is great, but it may be too awesome for its own good. We all need a little conflict to stay on our game and companies need it even more.

Someone out there has to have a great idea for making email faster/easier/better, so I say we hear it. If someone doesn’t try, we may be waltzing right into an email dark age.

I love you guys, I really do. Your search is top notch, your Gmail/Google Apps is a killer product and even you Google Reader is the best RSS reader I’ve found, online or off. You guys have a knack for producing exciting, reliable products that change the way we use information.

However, I do have one tiny favor to ask you. One small, minuscule request. Can you please stop buying up companies of products that I use? If so, that would be great. Because I’m really getting tired of you screwing up the things that were going along great without you.

If you have any questions about this request, I politely direct you to the article below. It will answer many of your queries and give my reasons for thinking that the Web would be better off if you kept your pocketbook a little closer to your chest.

The Google Problem

Realistically speaking Google has six products that are widely hailed as good and only two where you are dominant. They are.

1. Google Search
2. Google Ads (Adsense/Adwords)
3. Gmail
4. Google Docs
5. Google Reader
6. Google Maps

The problem is that all of these, with the exception of Google Docs, were developed in house for the most part (some did have add ons and extensions that came from other companies). Google made them, tailored them, made sure they were what the people wanted and put them out there. From day one, they were Google’s babies.

Sure, Google has had a few stinkers, Google Answers, Google Notebook, Lively, etc. but they’ve always been able to pull the gems out of their own work.

Unfortunately, when it comes to other people’s products, the ones that they buy, Google seems to do a great job snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Products that were fine and good before they came under the Google banner suddenly start stinking.

Though some products have done fine, YouTube being an example, it is usually because Google keeps them under a separate banner and just runs them as a silent overlord. You get the revenue, they get to keep on as they were before.

Whenever Google tries to “integrate” a product into their fold, it seems that disaster always follows.

A History of Misfires

Before the pod people chase me down and kill me for not joining the Google cult, let’s take a look at a few examples through Google’s history.

1. Dodgeball: Dodgeball was a semi-promising social networking service that used text messaging. Founded in 2000, it was bought by Google in 2005. Two years later, the founders quit in disgust. In a few months, the service will be closed for good.
2. FeedBurner: In 2007, FeedBurner, a very popular feed tracking and serving service, was acquired by Google. Initially the purchase was hailed as Google “liberated” the pro stats program, making it available for free to all. Integration came slow, but when it started within the past few months, almost immediately reliability issues were noticed.
3. Jaiku: Jaiku was a promising microblogging service that was considered a competitor for Twitter. Though it lagged behind Twitter in users, it had an additional features and greater reliability. It seemed poised to make a solid challenge. Google acquired Jaiku in the latter part of 2007 and promptly sat on it, closing it off to sign ups and then eventually deciding to kill it as a public-facing project.

Of course, these are just the obvious flame outs and misfires. This doesn’t even look at Google’s long history of acquiring competitors just to either A) Gain their employees or B) Put down the competition.

Consider this, according to Wikipedia (the source of all truth on the Web), Google has purchased no fewer than four companies that had their products go into Google Docs (or spreadsheets). This includes two different companies that made online presentation software, one word processor and one spreadsheet.

Though Google Docs is a solid product offering, I even listed it as such, did four companies really have to die to make it happen? The problem is that Google recruits talent like a pirate “recruits” treasure. It boards the ship, takes it over, moves the good stuff over to their boat and sinks the old one.

I wouldn’t mind that so much if Google would retain the sense of innovation and creativity that brought these companies to their attention. However, far too often, Google simply buys the companies, hires the people, kills the product or lets it rot in some kind of purgatory.

It isn’t fair to the people that worked to develop the product and it certainly isn’t fair to the people who used and relied on it. Just think of what these four companies could have done if they were still in business and independent today.

Conclusions

In the future, I’m making it my policy to, if I am using a service that Google is acquiring, to get the Hell off of there before it’s too late. If I had left FeedBurner when they first announced the acquisition, I would have had a clear path to leave. Now, it’s not so certain.

I’ll continue to love Google’s native products as well as any acquired ones that remain separate from Google. But for those that Google tries to “integrate” in with its core offerings, I’m likely going to have to say goodbye until the new product proves to be stable and not shut down.

Google has an ugly habit of buying up good Web services and either running them into the ground or integrating them in such a way that the sum of the parts is greater than the new “whole” produced. Fortunately though, it seems Google has slowed down is acquisitions and it might be to the benefit of the Web that Google is feeling the economic pinch. Small, agile companies will be able to grow their ideas without being bought out blindly by the big G.

Though there is certainly nothing wrong with buying up smaller companies and I certainly don’t wish to equate Google with the Microsoft of the 90s, it is clear that not all of Google’s buys have been in the best interest of the Web.

It is most likely time for us to accept that.

Sure, some people swear by Yahoo!’s mail offering. It is pretty and it does deal with some of the issues I address below, but it also doesn’t load on slower connections, has a terrible search function and can’t import email (seriously, are you THAT stupid Yahoo?). Compound that with no IMAP access and a paid account that doesn’t equal Gmail’s free offering, you have a rather distant second at best.

Outside of a few startups that are doing promising things with Web-based email, such as Zenbe, Gmail stands alone. There is no one out there that really competes with Gmail in this area. They were the first to introduce the super-sized mailbox for free, they were the first to use tags not folders on Webmail (Opera did it first in their mail client), they were the first to give free IMAP access and they were the first to actually put one iota of thought into usability.

But can it be better? Damn right. Nothing in the world is immune from improvement, except perhaps Joan Jett, so what can one do to make Gmail just a little more awesome? Here’s my pick of five things that can push it to eleven.

5. Fixing Google Chat

Honestly, I am not sure how I feel about the idea of chat integrated into my Gmail. Sure, I like the idea of all my communications in one place, but as Facebook chat has shown us, Web-based chat is usually a big steaming pile of fail.

However, Gmail chat does a reasonable job but the problem is that it is not a replacement for my existing IM clients. Since I use Adium at work and Digsby at home, there’s no reason to leave the Gmail chat logged in.

If Google chat would gain support for Yahoo!, MSN and other services, it might be able to replace my Adium, remove an application from my desktop and truly unify my communications. Until then, I have to hope that someone ports Spicebird over to the Mac.

4. Google Reader Integration

Though Web Clips was an interesting experiment, it is another case of right idea, wrong execution. I don’t know a single Gmail user that has this feature switched on right now and it is the first thing I disable in any new account I set up (which is actually very rare but that isn’t the point).

The idea of integrating RSS with email is an old one and a good one. Outlook users, for example, have been doing it for years and script authors have been integrating Google Reader into Gmail since at least 2006.

With such a high demand and a logical connection, it is a shame that Google has not done anything officially on this front. The idea of Web Clips is an interesting one, but it is too distracting and completely useless for actually reading RSS feeds.

Time to reboot that idea.

3. API

Google, for the most part, is a pretty open company and Gmail, in most ways, is no exception. There are several ways to allow other applications, including mail clients and Web sites, to access your Gmail contacts and mail so that you can view your information anywhere.

But what about the other direction? What if I wanted to create an application to run inside Gmail? It can be done but most of the methods available right now involve hacking the browser, not Gmail. This defeats much of the advantage of Webmail and it’s “always available” mentality.

I can write gadgets for iGoogle so why not Gmail? Security would have to be tightened so that only apps the user expressly allowed could be run, possibly including some kind of vetting process by Google, but this could endlessly extend Gmail and, if also able to edit the look and feel of Gmail, could create countless new themes.

Theoretically, adding this feature could make all of my other issues go away over time…

2. Connectivity With Other Services

Ok, Gmail is pretty flexible here. I can email someone or IM them, if they use Google Talk or AIM. Nice. But what if I want to call them? I can’t do that in Gmail, even though it already integrates Google Talk chat, it doesn’t include calling features.

Ok, fine. But what if I want to Twitter them, Facebook them, Myspace them, etc. I have to leave the site. So many sites offer brilliant APIs that Gmail does not interact with. It doesn’t even integrate with Jaiku, a product Google actually owns.

Gmail needs to stop thinking in terms of just email and IM and open up to all of the ways that people communicate. It can be a communications hub, not just an email service/client.

1. Tabs

I don’t get this one. iGoogle has tabs, Chrome has tabs and they are joined by a slew of other Google products that have embraces the goodness that is tabbing.

Why not Gmail?

This is one of the few areas where Gmail actually lags behind Yahoo!. Yahoo’s mail product has long supported tabs, ever since the new version came out, leaving Gmail users to wonder what is taking the big G so long?

Here’s the problem. Say that you are hammering out a long email and you realize that you need to either A) Research something discussed in a different conversation or B) Get a phone number from your contacts. Either way you have to save your draft, open up the search box and find what you’re looking for.

There is no way to do two things at once in Gmail without opening up new tabs or windows in your browser. That is stupid and downright counter-productive when you’re working on something lengthy, doubly so when it requires you to do research in your email account.

Tabs, even just one for reading mail, one for composing and one for contacts, would be a HUGE leap forward.

Seriously, can we get on that, now that you’ve pushed out templates, themes and signature fixes?

Bottom Line

I love Gmail, I want to make that clear, whether I am using it in my favorite email client via IMAP or the Web-based interface, I do like Gmail. Sure, I may gripe as a Google Apps user when I feel a bit shortchanged, but no one seems to have been able to create anything better.

But that is the crux of the Gmail problem. It isn’t that Gmail is so incredibly awesome that angels weep whenever they look at it, it is that the bar has been set so low that Google, with a relatively mediocre effort, was able to leap over the bar and then do a dance on top of it.

While all of that is well and good, the problem is that it wouldn’t take much for someone else to knock them off of their perch. Gmail got where it did by rethinking the email experience but, unless they keep rethinking Gmail, the next evolution will unseat them brutally.

All it takes one start up with a good idea and Gmail will become the next Hotmail…