As Google Gears turns one, it lands its biggest customers yet

By Ed Oswald | Published May 29, 2008, 4:50 PM

Google's Web services project has been renamed simply "Gears," and the company has announced that MySpace will use the technology in its e-mail platform.

"We want to make it clear that Gears isn't just a Google thing. We see Gears as a way for everyone to get involved with upgrading the web platform," software engineer Chris Prince said.

The social networking site's 110 million users send some 170 million messages per day according to site statistics. With Gears, users will be able to search through their e-mail quicker.

Gears will be a separate download that MySpace will prompt visitors to install. It will also store some e-mail data offline, which was a signature feature of the technology platform. It is this offline storage which speeds the search process.

Another large client, WordPress, has also agreed to incorporate Gears into its service. There, subscribers will be able to manage their blogs offline.

Gears is supported on Firefox and Internet Explorer, and Google said it is working on support for both Firefox 3 and Safari as well. Opera is also working to add support for both its desktop and mobile clients.

Google plans to also upgrade its Gmail and Calendar apps to use Gears. Google Reader and Docs already do so, in order to enable offline use.