A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and an e-mail service shortening your email address will still work. Google account holders in the UK are due to find this out, as Google Mail is set to become Gmail in Britain.
 
The transition from Google Mail to Gmail is due to take place over the next week. Google has estimated that the change will lead to a saving of approximately 60 million keystrokes per day, since ‘gmail’ contains 50% fewer characters than ‘googlemail’.
 
“If you already have a Google email account in the UK, you’ll soon have the option to switch your existing @googlemail.com address to the matching @gmail.com one, but you’re also free to stick with @googlemail.com,” explained Greg Bullock, a software engineer at Google on a blog post. “And starting later this week, anybody who signs up for a new account in the UK will get an @gmail.com address.”