Gmail, the world's biggest email provider, was 20 on Monday. It launched on the 1st of April 2004. At that time, it changed everything because it offered an enormous 1 gigabyte of storage for free. Some people thought it was a joke because it was announced on April Fools' Day. However, it was real. Other email providers only gave 15 megabytes. Gmail became a "must-have" tool for technology fans. Another reason for Gmail's success is that it searched mails faster than other email services. It was also better at filtering spam.
Today, more than 1.7 billion people use it. That's 20 per cent of the world population. Over the years, Google has increased its free storage to 15 gigabytes. It has added new features. One of these is a one-click unsubscribe button for unwanted mail. Another feature is an "undo send" button. This means users can stop a mail from being sent after clicking "send". The PC Mag website said Gmail is an important part of life today. It wrote: "Gmail is so [fixed] in so many people's lives that hardly anyone thinks much about it." It is likely people will use Gmail forever.
Try the same news story at these levels:
Gmail - Level 0, Gmail - Level 1 or Gmail - Level 3
Sources- https://www.theverge.com/24113616/gmail-email-20-years-old-internet
- https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/gmail-at-20-right-place-right-time
- https://www.techradar.com/computing/email-messaging/no-joke-gmail-is-20-and-were-probably-better-for-it
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)