Rondayview

Gmail Invitations

You're probably aware that an entire market has sprung up around Google Gmail invitations. They're for sale on eBay, there are sites dedicated to swapping invitations for goods and services, there's what amounts to a lottery (cost per play is a mouse click) with the Gmail Machine (currently offline due to alleged cheating); it's amazing the things that can become of value. A superb marketing move on Google's part---I'm sure it wasn't accidental---I'm of the opinion that Google's probably going to allow Gmail to continue to grow via the invitation model for a while before opening it up to the general public. And it wouldn't surprise me to see future sites launched using the same model; even if what's being marketed isn't all that desirable, it seems that making it difficult to obtain and then building the idea that ownership puts one in a special class of people, will have the world knocking at the door.

Well, for what it's worth, here's a couple invitations from me. First clicked first served. Will be interesting to see who ends up grabbing these and how long it takes from the moment I publish this to my blog. I'll post the stats after they've been grabbed.

[Update at June 30 12:56 PM] Well, it took a little over twenty-four hours for the first invitation to be claimed. Congratulations Josep! I've activated the link to the second invitation now.

[Update at July 2 10:42 AM] The second invitation was finally claimed last night around 9 PM.

Invitation #1  (Claimed! June 30 at 11:06 AM.)

Invitation #2  (Claimed! July 1 at 9:07 PM.)