Is gmail hiding the from address in google apps spam folder?

It has been common knowledge among email marketers that the “Friendly from name” is more important than the subject line. People scan the friendly from name to decide which emails are from people they recognise. If it is from someone they know then they are less likely to treat it as spam.

Roll on my Gmail junk folder. It was getting big so I thought I’d take a quick scan before deleting them. Of course with the emails being in the spam folder, I had only the from name and the subject line to go on - the images themselves are obscured. So I see “River Island” and “M&S” and thought I might want to see their emails in the future and click the “not spam” button. No sooner do I look at them with images do I know immediately it is spam and Google got it right.

Darn! I should have expanded the friendly from name so I could see the actual from address. It was obvious this was not from the sender it purported to be but this is hidden by default in the Google Apps version of Gmail. This doesnt seem to be the case in my standard gmail account.

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We need access to information at different times and in different ways - when we’re on the move we might use a mobile and at home a desktop. It is this change in circumstances and needs that devices are getting better at dealing with.

Email was one of the first devices to bridge the boundary between the desktop and the mobile. I am using Exchange at work and so a windows mobile phone works “well” at integrating the experience on the move. I haven’t been much of a fan of gmail via the mobile as yet - it currently feels a bit clunky, so I usually wait to answer personal emails when I get home unless they come to my work address but this will improve over time. It amazes me that the iphone doesn’t support exchange. It is one of the major reasons I ruled out purchasing it.

RSS is the next technology to do this and the need for this cross platform integration is stopping me moving from Google Reader. The platform works really well on both the mobile and desktop platforms. It’s all very well talking about using new platforms like Particls or fav.or.it but if it cant provide a great experience across multiple platforms then it at least needs to sync with Google Reader (or other great mobile platforms). It is now the first question I ask when I look at other RSS reader. This all comes back to dataportability. We need the ability to sync data as well as move it.

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After my previous post about Google losing its battle for the right to use the name “Gmail” in the UK and Germany, the European trademark office has now ruled that Google cannot register the trademark across Europe. Google however is standing firm and says it will continue to use the name Gmail in Europe (outside UK and Germany) as before.

Looking at the number of searches for gmail uk that comes to my blog looking at how to register a “gmail” address in the UK, there is plenty of confusion out there. Is it too late now for Google to rebrand gmail entirely? Everyone I know in the UK still refers to it as gmail..

If you are in the UK you can get a googlemail.com email address by going here - you may even be able to get a gmail address if you pretend you are outside the UK. No you cannot seem to get a gmail address by pretending to be outside the UK anymore.

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The BBC are reporting that Google have had to rename Gmail in the UK to Google Mail due to a trademark dispute with Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) (they do not have the nicest of websites but anyhow). This is the second time this has happened, with Gmail not being able to be used by Google in Germany after a ruling in September. Did Google really not think to look beyond their own shores when they came up with a name? Or maybe they just thought that they could pay their way to using gmail elsewhere (surely not). Even with all their money, I cannot see Google choosing to waste time over such matters.

Either way, how long is it going to be before they rename all their mail services Google Mail? Over time, they are not going to want to maintain 2 different brands worldwide - they will surely merge them. Shareholder value and all that. On top of that, as was pointed out on the BBC, people were sending emails to the wrong domain because of this - hardly a benefit if users start to get confused. Better to get the pain over and done with now and change - they are of course still in beta so they could just launch under a new name. Not ideal.. but better than trying to change later.

[update] For those visitors looking for gmail in the UK - you can find it at either www.googlemail.com or www.gmail.com - note if you state you live in the UK you will get an email address @googlemail.com address.

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