RSSGoogle Asks Students About Campus E-Mail
By Ed Oswald | Published April 9, 2007, 1:23 PM
Google is asking college students to voice their opinions on campus e-mail services, likely aimed at giving the company a better understanding of how to improve its suite of communications services aimed at colleges and universities.
The Mountain View, Calif. search giant has been offering a version of its Google Apps product for educational institutions for about a year now. The offering includes e-mail, instant messaging, document collaboration and calendaring tools.
Several schools already use the product, including Arizona State and Northwestern University. Google provides the service for free to schools that are accredited as non-profits.
Thus far, however, reception to the offering has been somewhat cool, and it is likely Google is looking for ways to attract more institutions by offering services and features that students want.
"University students lead hectic lives and are ready for email that helps them better organize themselves and communicate with others," Google's education division head Jeff Keitner said. "We're asking students to share their thoughts on campus email so we can help to make that experience even better."
An online survey has been posted on Google's Web site. In it, participants are asked to respond to five questions related to their habits and preferences when it comes to both e-mail and online applications.
Google also asks how satisfied the student is with his or her school's current system, likely giving the company a better idea of which schools may benefit from Google's services.
The search company is not the only Web e-mail provider attempting to lure colleges and universities: Microsoft offers a similar package called Live@edu, now used at about 100 colleges worldwide.
Microsoft hopes using the services in college would turn the student into a life-long user of the company's online applications.
Before Google tries to expand the base for its Gmail service any further, I think they need to do some serious thinking about providing adequately for their existing customers. My wife was shut out of Gmail twice lately because of "inappropriately using the service". Her "offense" was forwarding interesting articles and emails to her list of friends (a few tens of people at best). Apparently Google considers that inappropriate enough to disallow sending of messages from within her account. I consider it rude. And what makes it worse is that there's no human interaction involved in that process. It's all automated. I can't call someone up or email them to complain or get help. She was shut out of her account and short of submitting text through a web form, I could do nothing else for her. Again, rude. I'd pay to get something that is more user friendly and more reliable.
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|I'd pay to get something that is more user friendly and more reliable.
Then do.
It's free after all. There are probably thousands upon thousands of these issues every day considering the number of users. Do you think they can really afford to staff a support line to take in all those calls *and* the "my email no werk,plz fix now" BS?
I've been using several Gmail accounts now for a few years. Never had one shut down.
What kind of articles is she sending, and are all the senders on her list willing to receive them? I'd bet that someone's reporting her for using the system to spam.
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|I don't think that she is spamming, but the only thing I'm concerned with is there is a set amount of messages you have to send in a certain time frame before they lock you out. And if she is sending that many, then she uses her email a lot more than I do *lol*
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|Tell her to stop spamming people and perhaps she might not be locked out of her FREE Gmail account. I too suspect someone has reported her for spam - I know that's what I'd consider a mass-mail like that.
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