Gmail now has 1 billion monthly users

[krycor]

Yay, I am one in a billion. (Would that be an English or American billion?)

It also seems I have been a user for almost 12 years.... OK, just checked: "...thanks for opening a Gmail account..." 28/02/2005.

damn.. beat me by 10 months

 

[ABCpt]

damn.. beat me by 10 months

My thank you for joining gmail was received on 24 Nov 2004.

 

[kianm]

Divide that by say 4 and you'll have the number of real unique users

 

[Skerminkel]

My thank you for joining gmail was received on 24 Nov 2004.

Wow! I remember that at first there were only rumours about the service. Then you could apply for an invite (this is how I got mine) and then you could invite 50 people.

 

[xumwun]

What is the capacity of a shoebox full of punch cards?

I doubt it would be anymore than 2kb.




I think i deleted my "Welcome to gmail" message.

 

[ABCpt]

Wow! I remember that at first there were only rumours about the service. Then you could apply for an invite (this is how I got mine) and then you could invite 50 people.

I got an invite from my Boss and then after a couple of days of use I got like 10 invites I could send out. Can remember that I did not believe him that someone would give me 1GB of space for email.

 

[Skerminkel]

I doubt it would be anymore than 2kb....

So:
1024x1024/2 = 524 288 shoe boxes per GB
Assume every gmail user use about 7 GB => 3 670 016 shoe boxes per user
Assume average shoe box volume = 0.35x0.25x0.15=0.013125 m^3
Volume per user = 48 169 m^3
Total volume = 48169*1E9 = 4.187E13 m^3 of punch cards
= 48 169 km^3
A rough google value for the volume of Mount Everest is 1 500 km^3, therefore:
If google were to store all data from gmail accounts in punch cards, they would require 32 times the volume of Mount Everest.

You are welcome to correct my calculations!

 

[xumwun]

So:
1024x1024/2 = 524 288 shoe boxes per GB
Assume every gmail user use about 7 GB => 3 670 016 shoe boxes per user
Assume average shoe box volume = 0.35x0.25x0.15=0.013125 m^3
Volume per user = 48 169 m^3
Total volume = 48169*1E9 = 4.187E13 m^3 of punch cards
= 48 169 km^3
A rough google value for the volume of Mount Everest is 1 500 km^3, therefore:
If google were to store all data from gmail accounts in punch cards, they would require 32 times the volume of Mount Everest.

You are welcome to correct my calculations!

XKCD already went there
https://what-if.xkcd.com/63/

 

[Skerminkel]

XKCD already went there
https://what-if.xkcd.com/63/

View attachment 338888

Cool, thanks. Great minds, eh?

I will do some recalculations with "A punch card can hold about 80 characters, and a box of cards holds 2000 cards" when I am done with my real job.