Gmail revolutionized email 20 years ago. People thought it was Google’s April Fools’ Day joke

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin loved pulling pranks, so much so they began rolling outlandish ideas every April Fools’ Day not long after starting their company more than a quarter century ago. he jokes were so consistently over-the-top that people learned to laugh them off as another example of Google mischief. And that’s Google decided to unveil something no one would believe was possible 20 years ago on April Fools’ Day. It was Gmail, a free service boasting 1 gigabyte of storage per account — 250 times to 500 times more the capacity offered by other webmail services. Gmail revolutionized email while also launching Google’s expansion beyond search.