Gmail Turns Ten Years Old

Posted on April 1, 2014



Gmail celebrates its tenth birthday today. Google officially launched its email service on April 1, 2004, which was not the best day to launch a product as April Fool's Day has become known as a day of jokes and fake products on the Internet. Gmail has become a huge service despite the Fool's Day launch. Wired says Gmail has completely transformed the web. Wired also notes that Gmail was invite-only until February 2007. For more about Gmail's past, Wikipedia has an entry called the "History of Gmail" here.

Mashable created this video to show the path Gmail emails take. Your gmail goes through the Internet backbone, through Google's servers and then back through the Internet backbone again to get to its destination. Google can back up your email and scan it for viruses before sending it on its way to your target email address.



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