gothica

My parents used to scoff at the amount of time I spent star-

ing at a screen and pecking at a keyboard. They still do. “Look, he’s on a date with his girlfriend!” Dad says when he feels especial-ly witty or justified enough to equate my time online to a lack of a significant other.

Well, Pop, you’ll be glad to know that I’m in the healthiest relationship of my life. My crush is fast and easy to use. She has plenty of capacity for storage, even for my most prodigious needs. She responds to orders, acquiesces to my every demand and never loses anything. She’s a web-hosted, Ajax-based, beta version of a free e-mail service.

She goes by Gmail. Her last

name may soon be Cohen. Only problem? Gmail is a

modern Marilyn Monroe: every-one wants a piece of her. Natu-rally, we’re in a polygamous re-lationship, if that’s what you can call Gmail’s fooling around with millions of others while I wait, as always, unflinchingly faithful .

Except, that is, for a das-tardly month-long period in August 2006. College is a time for trying new things, I had told Gmail before trading her for the uncertainty of freshman year. I would learn Arabic and Chinese, throw a Frisbee on the greenest quad I could find, chant Handel in the Chapel. Anything and ev-erything was possible without the burden of a relationship, monogamous or not, but for the

>>>GMAIL,JE T’AIMEGoogle’s email client has changed one life. Should Duke ditch its webmail makeovers and join the revolution? ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR JARDNO

TOWERVIEW10

AN ESSAY BY BEN COHENDUKE DURHAM HEALTH SPORTS CULTURE

first time since initially embrac-ing Gmail, I was lost, scared and vulnerable.

Then I saw her. Everyone called her Web-mail, a name full of nor-malcy. She was ugly; that’s the first thing I no-ticed, the first thing anyone noticed. Not only uglier than G m a i l — r e -ally, what could compare?—but i n e s c a p a b l y ugly. Misfor-tune was her es-sence: She was small where big was better, slow when I wanted fast, obtrusive where subtlety was premium. She represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.

I soon realized what I still believe: Duke has no match for Gmail (the e-mail system, not my imaginative female friend). That’s why I forward my Duke e-mail to my Gmail account; that’s why I refuse to even look at Webmail.

It only makes sense, then, that I was a fervent advocate for Duke to outsource its e-mail service to

Google. (Outsourcing in conjunction with computer-ized beaus? Yikes.) Relieving OIT from its e-mail duties seemed to be both the only move and the most logical step for the school whose mission statement ends with a commitment to “main-tain a place of real leadership in all that we do.” Making Gmail (or Dmail!) our primary e-mail was an opportunity for Duke to exhibit progressive thinking and become a paragon of technologi-cal compliance.

Google is the perfect recipi-ent of our business, not just for Gmail, but because of its Apps for Education deal which includes Gmail, Google Documents and Google Calendar. Together, it is a collaborative package that fore-bodes the future of institutional curricula. And here’s the kicker: it’s all free! I asked Jeff Keltner, the business development man-ager for Google Apps for Educa-tion, about the program’s defi-

ciencies. “There are no down-sides,” he said. “That’s the whole thing.”

For better or worse, Duke wouldn’t be the guinea pig, either. North-western and the University of Southern California gave Google their business this year. Arizona State made its move in 2006 and has since

transferred the $500,000 it saved to other, more pragmatic of-fices. Perhaps those schools were tempted by the massive storage space (my Gmail holds 6,422 MB compared to Webmail’s 390 MB capability), or its revered spam blocker (an e-mail with an “un-known” date and X-rated subject currently sits in my Webmail inbox), or its ability for mind-less cost-cutting (I’m sure stu-dents would be happy to re-allot $500K to bring Dave Matthews to campus. Every other month).

MY CRUSH IS FAST AND EASY TO USE.

SHE RESPONDS TO ORDERS,

ACQUIESCES TO MY EVERY DEMAND AND NEVER LOSES ANYTHING. SHE’S A WEB-HOSTED,

AJAX-BASED, BETA VERSION OF A FREE

E-MAIL SERVICE.

I am thankful for the anti-spam effort, but I am more ap-preciative of Gmail’s other perks: filters, colors, labels, archives and a bevy of other terms that mean nothing to you but everything to me. When an e-mail from my English professor hits my inbox, it automatically is slapped with a “Spring 2008” tag and blue color for easy referencing. I skim the e-mail, tap ‘y’ on the keyboard and the message is sent to the archives, allowing for a tidy in-box. Tired of those annoying departmental dispatches that you delete quicker than the message opens? In Gmail, you can send it straight to your trashcan. For those innovations, and for so many more that you simply have to find yourself, Keltner believes Gmail’s rise to prominence was, and is, inevitable.

“If I’m providing e-mail, it’s costing an arm and a leg and my students don’t like it, because something like Gmail is better,” he said. “In that world, a lot of people focus initially on the mail component and Gmail, specifi-cally. But a lot of CIOs are really starting to look at the need for collaboration as central to the future of higher education…. It’s not their immediate need, but it’s certainly a large portion of the value.”

I didn’t need Keltner to sell me, but one part about our con-versation pesters me. Although I have an unrequited love for Gmail and already use too many other Google products, I wonder whether outsourcing e-mail is really a “need” for Duke. I looked around campus and a contrary answer emerged. I snuck peeks at open laptops and found that most people still use Webmail. But why? Either because it still fits the basic needs of most students, or be-cause most students don’t know how to forward to Gmail. The statistics favor the former.

Get this: only 10 to 15 per-cent of Duke students forward their mail to an outside host like Gmail or Yahoo!, said IT senior analyst Chris Colomb, known colloquially to some as the department’s e-mail guru. Ten

percent? I feel like I could name 600 students using Gmail over Webmail by myself. Of course, Colomb’s number is skewed be-cause it does not include those who use Outlook, Thunderbird, Mac Mail or other desktop cli-ents. Still, though, Colomb ac-knowledged the misleading cir-cumstances.

“There was this internal misperception that more people were forwarding their mail than was actually the case,” says Co-lomb, who does not forward his Duke e-mail. “I found that very validating. My last collegiate ex-perience [at UNC for 15 years] was very similar, with only 10 per-cent…. If someone had a Google account, you’d think there’s no need for a campus service. But I’ve

found that’s not the case at all.” Colomb is the type of guy

who casually throws out nerd-isms like IMP and POP, uses emoticons in e-mails to express his pleasure from a pleasant but typical interview and is genuine-ly excited to discuss the pros and cons of Duke’s current technol-ogy—in other words, he isn’t re-motely defensive or hostile when I profess my love for one of his competitors. He elegantly raises some counterpoints that Keltner only skimmed over: namely, that Webmail allows Duke to authen-ticate sent e-mails, fosters a tech-nological community and is espe-cially inviting to professors and staff. “Those are kinds of things that are not necessarily sexy,” he said. “But in our environment, they’re really important.”

To him, Gmail isn’t the big bad wolf, even if it does have some big, bad problems. (She can’t cook, for one.) Colomb is

fearful of Google and Microsoft Live mining students’ e-mails for advertising information, al-though students’ Gmail accounts do not display advertising and Google does not scour e-mails for information until after grad-uation, Keltner says. More than anything, Colomb is skeptical of the gratis tag, citing programs like Mail.com that were once free, then charged, and now you’ve never heard of them. If Google does one day cost mon-ey—Keltner says, “It’s certainly not something we’ve been plan-ning”—or if its still-Beta version collapses, what will Duke do with a decimated OIT staff and defunct e-mail service?

“Mail is morphing into more than just mail, but collaborative

technology in which mail is a part,” Colomb says. “The prob-lem for any IT organization is how we can enable that for our entire user space. What a lot of schools are doing is re-defining the problem. They say, ‘Well, we’ll just outsource the students to one of these efforts, then we’ll do the faculty and staff on a new special server to which students want to have access.’ I think that’s a crummy way to do things.”

I still doubt Colomb’s argu-ment—it’s his job, after all, to ad-vertise his product, and self-pro-motion means little in the context of journalism—until he e-mails me (from either his Webmail, Thunderbird or Mac Mail, to my Gmail) the day after we talk. He includes a link to the next gen-eration of Webmail. I’ve certainly seen more beautiful sites, but it’s not ugly. Far from it.

The basic interface is just that, which will appeal to the resident

Luddites. It bears a particular resemblance to Gmail itself be-cause of its signature Ajax code, and the Advanced interface looks native, just like Outlook. Search-ing is easier; composing mail is more reminiscient of Microsoft Word than an old-school DOS system; saving mail has never been easier. And in the spirit of collaboration, Webmail’s new calendar feature is just as promi-nent as e-mail. Those that have tested it—a small crop of stu-dents, me and the select group of friends to whom I forwarded it (sorry, Chris)—have all been im-pressed. I even went so far as to open three pieces of previously-unread mail in the Ajax version, my favorite.

Feeling strangely guilty for indulging my urge to cheat, I click on my Gmail bookmark and see those three messages, unread in the omniscient eyes of Gmail, bolded like a stigmata on my conscience. I couldn’t leave my beloved, not again.

Keltner’s words echoed in my mind: “I know a lot of people feel much more comfortable driving than flying even though every study tells you that you’re safer in an airplane. When I have my hands on the wheel, I feel like I’m in control and I feel safer. I think there’s some of that going on, that feeling of control that many don’t like to give up.”

Webmail has had a top-notch makeover, and turned out all right in the end. She still pales in com-parison to Gmail—only not as dra-matically. My Marilyn isn’t worth the whole damn bunch put togeth-er anymore, but she’s still the best e-mail provider on the Web.

And perhaps that’s the most desirable outcome for Duke. We 10 percent-ers will stand by Gmail and extol its superiority.The Outlookers and Thunder-birders will bask in the comfort of majority. The Webmail loy-alists will notice a new homep-age and interface one day next fall and shrug contently before checking their e-mail.

Some will fly, some will drive. All will feel safe knowing that beauty still lies in the eye of the beholder.

TOWERVIEW 11

ONLY 10 TO 15 PERCENT OF DUKE STUDENTS FORWARD THEIR MAIL TO

AN OUTSIDE HOST. “IF SOMEONE HAD A GOOGLE ACCOUNT, YOU’D THINK

THERE’S NO NEED FOR A CAMPUS SER-VICE,” COLOMB SAYS. “BUT I’VE FOUND

THAT’S NOT THE CASE AT ALL.”