We came across this paean to Gmail, Google's entirely-online email server, by a ReadWriteWeb columnist, and we can only second what he says about Gmail's Spam-stopping, search function (it is Google, after all!), and mobility. We'd add that its use of "conversations" rather than individual missives, its bare-bones simple template, and its Gchat instant-message software make it the email provider to be beat.

But Gmail's real value might be not the mail itself but the attendant Google software suite that accompanies it. You can have posts from your favorite blogs delivered to you via Google's great RSS reader (click here to get ours!). You can receive articles about your favorite company or celebrity via Google Alerts. And you can do your word processing on Google Docs, Google's increasingly formidable answer to Microsoft Office, which allows you to share documents and spreadsheets with anyone you choose (in fact, in a decidedly un-Microsoft-ian display of generosity and openness, you can even share Google Docs with non-Gmail users).

Google may be the most important soldier in the Web 2.0 revolution we wrote about last week. Gmail, Google Docs, and the like are classic ways to cloud compute--to access your emails, personal information, important documents, and the like from anywhere, anytime, and to give others access to some of them in turn. Google's software isn't perfect--until it gets word count and a variety of other basic features, its word processor will be no match for Word--but give it time.

Oh, and did we mention how it's all free, as well as completely, totally tech-idiot-proof? There goes some overhead costs, as well as hours of agita dealing with tech support. Owners of big businesses ought to be positively jealous at how disporportionately Google's offerings benefit small business owners.

So if you're not on Gmail, you may want to consider switching over. But regardless of whether it becomes your primary email address, you'll want to register a user name with Google at the very least so that you can begin to explore and take advantage of Google 2.0. (Oh, and bizboxonslate@gmail.com is taken.)