September 30, 2004
Gmail and the Tragically Hip
Well, I guess I have entered the realm of the secret society of cool tech insiders because a friend of mine sent me one of the coveted GMail invitations from Google! At one time, these invites were commanding more than $100 on Ebay.
Actually, I think this is one of those great viral marketing campaigns that takes advatage of the power of email to spread the word through ever-expanding circles. The use of keywords in GMail to serve up ads has been well-publicized on a number of media sites (e.g. stories from Wired, MSNBC, etc.) but I wonder about the tracking of all these invitations. It seems Google will have a goldmine of personal networks to draw from in future software releases. They should be able to tell who the respected opinion leaders are and follow the flow across the net.
Despite these concerns, I activated my account and I have been playing with the features. There are some I really like but I have so many email accounts right now that I am not sure I need another one. I could have all my mail forward to GMail but I like having different addresses for the various hats I wear and GMail does not currently offer POP or IMAP to allow integration into an email client.
Oh well, at least I know I am part of someone's network. (Thanks Will!)
Posted by Rovy at September 30, 2004 8:40 AM
Comments
You could have just responded to my "I have GMAIL invites" post and they would never know how little of a connection the invitation represented. Actually I would be very curious about what they do or could learn from studying the propegation of invitations.
Posted by: David at October 1, 2004 12:17 AM
There is always a way to scam the system! My post is a bit tounge-and-cheek. I agree with you, though, I would like to know what they could learn. Not from a "fear-of-big-brother" sort of paranoia but just out of curiosity.
Thanks for your comment.
Rovy
Posted by: Rovy at October 1, 2004 7:50 AM
I agree with you. I also would like to know what they could learn from networks or the tracking of invitations. Anyway, I think, with 1000 MB and new features, they offer a great service. But, as you said, I like having different addresses for the various purposes (school, personal life, etc.), so I would not like all my mails forwarded to GMail.
Posted by: bekir at October 11, 2004 1:25 AM