6/23    Wheee!  More free Gmail invites.  Email me. -dgies
        \_ This is such a great marketing scam.  Whipping up the masses to
           fight over access to be a beta tester and keeping Gmail endlessly
           in the news.  Of course this is the exact opposite of the right
           way to get a variety of people to test a new product.
           \_ They don't want beta testers.  They're constructing a social
              map (similar to orkut/friendster) of the techno-elite, probably
                              \_ wow. There goes the neighborhood:
                  http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=3754490903895861645
                  http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=9996167195013252263
              just to get their fingers on the pulse of the net.  It may be
              that they'll never open the service to the masses; you have to
              know someone already in there.
              \_ The true 'techno elite' don't need or want a gmail account.
                 The people most psycho over it are all on slashdot.  There
                 are some slashdot people who aren't idiots but overall it
                 isn't techno-elite time overe there.
           \_ Gmail seems to work better than any other free email I've seen.
              For whatever reason, for me it's fast, uncluttered, and the
              search feature is good. Plus it has the most storage space.
              So while there's a surplus of hype, it's a good email service.
              It's an interesting extension of Google... if gmail becomes
              huge, Google becomes basically "the internet", with all forms
              of internet content going through them. Pretty neat, and a
              huge adv. leverage. I've never ever clicked one of the ads tho.
              \_ How does Google become "the internet" any more than Yahoo or
                 AOL?  Yahoo provides the same services as Google and many
                 more that Google does not.  When we get Google-Date that can
                 find people their perfect match in a few simply clicks then
                 you're talking.
                 \_ Well ok, it's mainly hype. My main point was that it is
                    indeed a better webmail service at this time.
                    http://somethingawful.com has a gmail article now that's worth a
                    chuckle.
        \_ I got a gmail account, and all I got was this lousy message:
           Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again
           in a few minutes. We're sorry for the inconvenience.
           \_ They don't call it beta for nothing.
           \_ I got this too initially, just wait a while for the account
              creation to go through. Not a very good first impression though. ;)
        \_ They're gone for now.  Maybe more later. -dgies
        \_ More!  More!  We want more!
        \_ What the heck would I need a Gmail account for? Someone invited
           me to orkut and WTF would I use that either? I did sign up for
           it to see what it was, but never logged in since. I agree that
           this is much ado about nothing.
           \_ If it won't for gmail, you won't get that 100mb from Yahoo either,
              so shut the fuck up and get it bitch!!
           \_ It's the google hype machine in action.  In a month or two this
              will be Yet Another Free Email Service With Ads unless you're a
              slashdot moron in which case you'll always feel superior knowing
              you had a 3 or 4 digit Google ID.
           \_ Gmail is quite different from your average free mail
              with ads. It groups emails by conversation, and does not
              clutter up your inbox. If you had 10 corresponds with this
              one person, it will just show up as one entry in the inbox.
              Click this entry and you will see all emails related to
              this conversation. It's also light and fast. Very nifty. I
              am no fan of their privacy policy however. But as a techie,
              I like their interface very much.
                \_ Hmm sounds like stuff I used to do with (n)mh+mh-e+gnus
                   back in 1994.
                   \_ Sure, word looks like edlin too.
              \_ Why not keep your e-mail on your own PC? What good is
                 1 GB of free e-mail storage?!
        \_ I got some too, thanks to dgies!  I'll give away the next two
           invites posted here!
        \_ OK, they're gone for now. -dgies