It is shocking how much better Google’s free Gmail is than the expensive Microsoft Outlook 2007 I have at work.

Gmail searches my mail better, handles contacts better, is faster, has built in chat, works the same from anywhere in the world and its label feature is way better than folders. Did I mention one of these applications costs a lot of money to buy, set up and maintain, while the other is free?

The worst part about my work’s e-mail is the atrocious Microsoft server Web mail. It is horrible, and I rarely check my e-mail at home, sometimes to the chagrin of coworkers. If it worked like Gmail, I’d always have it open, but it’s another garbage Microsoft Web misadventure.

My Gmail account has 4.5 gigs of storage. I’d like to see the IT department let me get away with even a few hundreds megs. For $50 a year per seat, corporations can get a corporate version of Gmail that is infinitely better than Outlook, especially on the road, and it comes with 24-hour tech support. Yet, most of them will stick with the much more expensive and far less useful option (companies need servers, Windows Server, Outlook clients and IT people to manage everything).

Why? Because companies don’t like change, and IT departments like software that makes users reliant on them. Gmail would allow companies to cut costs and thus IT budgets. What kind of IT department would sign up for that?

I’m sure there is plenty of hubris flowing out of IT departments about how Gmail isn’t ready to switch to or it can’t do this or that. But take it from me, it rocks and it is incredibly easy to use whether you are just an occasional home user or a power user.

The new version of Gmail that just hit has a refined user interface, new features and tweaks to old features. It really has taken Gmail to another level.

You are missing out if you haven’t tried Gmail. It is the best Web-based e-mail solution out there and the most Web centric.

If a Web site requires users to register to view basic content it is losing countless potential users, page views and ultimately revenue.

User registration is a needless step that alienates potential users. Yes, many sites have gotten away with requiring registration for years, but that’s because core audience members doesn’t mind, because they are the kind of people who come to a site everyday. That core audience, however, is not all you are after.

The Internet is a much more organic experience than most journalism companies are used to or prepared to handle. Newspapers are used to dealing with a certain coverage area that they often own. There isn’t a lot of competition and there is very little room to grow and discover new readers.

This is not the case on the Internet. The world is your audience. A newspaper will still have a coverage area, but there will be people outside of that coverage area interested in stories from that area.

If, however, a site requires user registration to attempt to gain information about readers in a coverage area it may alienate most of the people outside of your coverage area.

Let me explain. Stories, videos, features, etc constantly get linked all over the Internet. The Internet is an organic experience where people share stories and information in new ways and other sites automatically gather stories, videos and other content for people to consume.

If someone sends me a link to a story they think I’ll be interested in I’ll read it, but I won’t read it if I have to sign up just to read one story. That’s an unnecessary hassle for someone who isn’t a core audience member. So, I’ll never end up reading that story or spending any time on that Web site. If I was able to read the story, I might have enjoyed the site, looked around, viewed some more content and even made a bookmark of it.

But how am I to discover new content if I have to hop over a wall to get to it? I won’t and most people won’t either. Thus, many Web sites have a strategy that limits their potential reach to just core audience members. That’s not a winning strategy.

As excellent example of this problem can be found at ESPN. ESPN has team pages for all the major professional sports teams, and they are pretty great resources for fans. They display a lot of ESPN content and link to other local content a team and the team they are playing next.

ESPN’s page for the Cleveland Browns is a great example. It has original ESPN stories, previews, predictions, videos, message boards, etc, but it also links to stories from local Cleveland-area papers and Seattle-area papers (The Seahawks are the Browns next opponent). But many times I have clicked on a story I really wanted to read to be shut out by a wall.

I’ll repeat, I’m not signing up to read one story. Thus the idea of having people sign up to view basic content is idiotic and a great way to not gain new users.

If you want people to sign up, make it for more in-depth features. If your site employs a talk back feature after every story it is perfectly reasonable to make people register to post comments. If you have message boards, that’s another area. Or you could have people register so you can send them e-mail updates on breaking news or stories that matter to them.

But making people sign up to view any of your content is counterintuitive, it’s against what the Web is all about and it will lose your company lots of potential users and money.

Who benefits from that?