Gmail Storage Capacity Bumped Up to 2 Gigabytes

In what has become a familiar story of one-upsmanship in the battle for the loyalty (and eyeballs) of internet users, Google has bumped the storage capacity of its Gmail email service to 2 gigabytes. Just one-and-a-half weeks ago Yahoo! announced that it would bump up its email storage capacity to 1 gigabyte.

This means that Yahoo! can wave goodbye to all of its Yahoo! Mail Plus customers...or, at least, to those who haven't already switched to Gmail. (Yahoo! Mail Plus is the company's $20/year email service whose primary selling point is that it offers 2 gigs of storage.)

To be frank, I don't see Yahoo! emerging as the victor here, barring a major overhaul of its email service. Gmail is simply better: it boasts a better search function, no graphical ads whatsoever, a preview of an email before it is even opened, and overall, a more streamlined, functional interface. Google has also been successful in building the Gmail brand, cultivating a certain air of exclusivity by way of the service's "invite only" status.

Full disclosure: I do not own shares of Google or Yahoo.