In a surprise announcement this morning, Google has announced Gmail Paper, a new service to replace its Gmail e-mail service to allow printouts of users' mail message to be sentby postal shipments. The cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements, which will appear on the back of Gmail Paper prints in red, bold, 36 pt Helvetica type.The announcement shocked other online e-mail providers who are now scrambling to come up with their own paper e-mail service. According to a representative from Google, "People are printing out e-mails all the time and it is our goal to make this a convenient way to send mail without having to get a stamp and go to the post office."
Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft says that an update for their popular Outlook e-mail program will be avaiable starting on Monday which will allow users to send regular mail instead of a typical e-mail.
According to Google, advertisers have jumped on the bandwagon with this new service and it expects it to be really popular and to increase revenue dramatically. Google stock rose $6.43 per share on the announcement.
Now that's smart thinking on Google's part, don't ya think? Read on...
