CNET: Google to offer gigabyte of free e-mail
MercuryNews.com: Google to offer free e-mail
NYTimes: Google Planning to Roll Out E-Mail Service

Google will soft launch a new email service - termed Gmail - on Thursday with just a thousand lucky invitees. The high storage service will be free to all users, taking revenues in only from advertising. Officials at Google had argued about whether or not to let email content help contextually dictate which ads were shown to users. Users will be able to conduct powerful searches across all of their stored mail.

The new Gmail service could prove a spoiler for the popular Yahoo and Hotmail services, which charge extra subscription fees for storing email beyond a very small storage space. But it makes sense for Google in that it has successfully developed ways to sell all of its advertising inventory at prices that are sometimes reaching the point of diminishing returns for many advertisers. Increasing inventory supply could help lower prices for advertisers while increasing revenues for Google.