Google is celebrating the 20th anniversary of announcing the launch of Gmail on the same day as April Fools' Day.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have successfully trolled users by introducing an email service with an unheard amount of storage space at the time.
Gmail's Launch as Long-Running Joke
Google's announcement of Gmail on April 1, 2004, was initially perceived as a joke by many. Before 2004, the company has been consistent in participating in April Fools' Day by posting fake announcements.
However, Page and Brin had a different idea when they decided to introduce Gmail as a free email service that comes with 1GB of storage per account. Although 1GB is considered small today, back then it was considered a dream to have enough capacity to hold 13,500 emails.
In addition, email services back then could only store around 30 to 60 emails which was often seen on services by Yahoo and Microsoft. Due to its preposterous premise, mostly saw the announcement as a prank.
Gmail's Historic Run Continues
According to former Google executive Marissa Mayer, who was part of the design team, the original pitch design for Gmail was based on three principles: storage, search, and speed.
"That was part of the charm, making a product that people won't believe is real. It kind of changed people's perceptions about the kinds of applications that were possible within a web browser," said former Google engineer Paul Buchheit about Gmail's development.
20 years after its historic and hilarious launch, Gmail has now an estimated 1.8 billion active accounts. The service has also improved by offering 15GB of free storage which is linked with Google Photos and Google Drive.
The company also sells additional storage capacity for organizations and individuals. Google charges around $30 annually for 200GB to $250 per year for 5TB of storage.
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