GMail is the internet web based email for Google which enables you surf the web within your email. You can choose to search within you email or just search the web from your email interface.

The beauty with all this is that it comes at no cost other than having a Gmail email account. The cost of a phone call had tremendously dropped to the extent that it was cheaper to call as compared to sending a text.

At least for a start, you have as many as 50 free SMS texts that can be sent to mobile numbers, I have not exhausted mine so I'm not sure what happens after that may be that will be our next article on this subject.

The mere fact that a mobile phone is in most cases with the person your sending this message to, it appears to be more instant than an email most especially if that person has not got access to the internet but the GSM network is available.

In Uganda, the Gmail SMS service is available to those on MTN, Orange and Uganda Telecom. It is not clear when networks like WARID, Airtel among others will get on board though Google is quick to add that; "If you are a mobile operator, and wish to integrate with the SMS feature of Gmail, please drop us a note to: mobile-operators-gmail-sms-integration@google.com"

Replying to (SMS) Messages:
"When you receive an SMS message from a Gmail contact, add the incoming number to your phone's address book (this number is associated with the sender's Gmail account, so you can use it to send Chat messages to that person in the future). Then, you can reply to the message as you would any other text message, and your reply appears as a Chat message in your friend's Gmail account."  from Google.

Free web based emails like Yahoo and Gmail are a good tool for communication but there is need to re- think if you are going to do business with that kind of email. Yahoo it self offers customized emails but it will give you the option of a free service and when you feel it is time to upgrade, you then get an email tagged to your business if at all it is still available BUT at a fee.

If you are a business out there and you have no email tagged to your business, one of the resolutions for the new year is to get an email address customized to your business because then you will be taken more serious than when you use a free web based one. Before we look at why you should get a customized email, we would like to make it categorically clear that the web based emails are still good but they come in with strings attached.

Reasons to consider for getting a customized email:

• You are looked at as a serious entity when you use you@your_company.com as opposed to using others. If a company is called Blahze!, then the right thing could be info@blahze.com
• No need of going to the SPAM folder which in most cases has over 1,000 unsolicited messages but also with legitimate ones. the problem is the cost of scrolling through the unwanted to extract a legit email.
• How many emails form conmen do you get in a day? How many of those are using customized as opposed to using the 'free' emails? It is obvious conmen use free web based emails.
• If you used a customized email to communicate, chances are your email will be read first and acted upon.
• Of course many look at it as a cost saving measure but if you are not careful the move will make you loose a lot more than you think you are saving. Meanwhile, an email account is not very costly if you bothered to ask.
• Not so many people out there consider the internet seriously but the numbers of those who do are increasing and trust me you could even loose out on a bid where you are vying for too much money just because you can't part with very little to have your own email that even makes you not only professional but more professional than using a free service.

Finally, free web based emails are good and in fact you will rarely find customized emails that have just as much space that Gmail can offer, or find a customized email that has a search engine embedded in it like Gmail or real time news with your email interface like Yahoo.