Aggressive Google: Gmail Team Asks You to Do an Email Intervention
Google under Larry Page is uber aggressive, and the latest salvo comes in the form of EmailIntervention.com, a slick website that enables you to do an intervention with your Yahoo, Aol and Hotmail-using friends and family members.
Context & Ripple Effects
Gmail has always grown by word of mouth — back in 2007 the service was fueling student frenzies on campus — but EmailIntervention.com turns that organic pull into an organized campaign: a site built for Gmail users to stage interventions on friends still on Yahoo, AOL and Hotmail. It lands weeks after Yahoo positioned its revamped Yahoo Mail squarely against Google and Microsoft in free webmail, and inside Larry Page's first 100 days as CEO, when he is pushing a leaner, more aggressive Google.
The timing also follows a rough stretch for Yahoo: comScore had it second in search at 15.9 percent in May, TopProspect data showed it losing the engineering-talent war among big tech firms, and its chairman had to publicly back CEO Carol Bartz at the June shareholder meeting. The product groundwork was laid earlier too, with Priority Inbox in August 2010 giving Gmail a headline feature to point converts toward.
First-order effects
- Gmail users get a purpose-built tool to convert specific friends and family off Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and Hotmail, making every existing user an acquisition channel.
Second-order effects
- Yahoo, which just relaunched Yahoo Mail in May 2011 as its counter-move against Google and Microsoft, faces pressure to defend its large installed base with retention features rather than new-user marketing.
Third-order effects
- Webmail competition shifts from feature checklists to network effects: whoever mobilizes existing social ties to migrate contacts wins lock-in, a playbook that pairs naturally with Google's broader push into social with Google+.
The trend: Consumer webmail is entering a phase where incumbents fight over legacy user bases through social-pressure acquisition campaigns instead of standalone feature launches.