Google doesnt want its gmail service to starve like that so they are taking necessary steps before any other email service takes over the number one place,and the most dangerous competitor is facebook itself,we informed you all How to get a facebook email address here when facebook launched the email service.
Recently google launched the two step verification that will be implemented on gmail accounts gradually,you can see here how to activate 2-step verification in gmail for extra security of your account,now it seems they are also changing the gui (graphial user interface) of gmail a bit or completely that time will tell
The old look of gmail was something like this (Click all the images on this site to enlarge them)
Now instead of the normal sign out and settings text link you will see something like the image below
Once you click on your name
You will see your email address and sign out option underneath it,for settings you will see the normal setting icon and you need to click on it
And you will see both mail settings and google account settings below it where in old look we used to go to settings>>account>> then there at the bottom there was the link for google account settings but now if in your account you are still under older look then you will see change account settings on the top itself under account and imports tab like the image below
In the image you can see now change password option is there itself,once you will click on it will open a new page to change your password
So gradually google is making so many great changes in gmail and I wish it remains the number one email service in future as well,now when the main mind the person who created gmail for google has joined facebook,google needs to take care of all the things that can enrich the popularity of gmail