My Gmail Wager

:)
1. MONEY.
2. Project Success #2
3. Cell phone bill reduced.
4. Billing situation worked out.
5. Ate well today.

I am thankful for...
1. God.
2. My love.
3. Success #2.
4. Jim Turner.
5. My laptop.

I'm hearing right now...
Hoobastank - The Reason

I'm feeling Happy.

If you haven’t been trapped underneath a rock for the past several months then you most likely know about the Google email service Gmail. Instead of rambling on here about how great and awesome Gmail is or even trying to pawn off my unlimited invites I am simply going to talk about Gmail as an invite only service and why it makes sense.

Gmail since the day it has become available to those outside of the Google Universe has been an invite only service. At first getting an invite was quite a difficult task and many people even went as far as selling invites on Google and making quite a profit from it. Google created quite a bit of hype by making Gmail invite only at first. The hype made the service coveted and people scoured the Interweb for invites.

Fast forward nearly a year and Gmail is still in BETA and still invite only. People have speculated many, many, times that Gmail is going to go live each time a lot of invites are released to users but recently they released 50 invites to all users yet the service is still in beta and little points to the fact it will be changing from that anytime soon.

It is my personal belief that Google has the intention to keep the service invite only as I’ve been given these unlimited invites and it really only makes sense for the service to remain invite only to keep out the trashy spammers and the like.

Google hasn’t been all that frugal with invites as of late. Does that mean they are going to launch the service in the next two weeks? Not likely.

Keeping the service invite only and providing enough invites for everyone to give out and get everyone in on the service who wants to be is the best thing Google can do. The latest message from the Gmail team before sending a Gmail invite reads:

We hope you've liked using Gmail. We've definitely been working hard to make it better. Meanwhile, the Gmail family has been growing largely through invitations--sent by users who want to share Gmail with the people they care about. We hope you'll want to as well. Just fill in this form below and we'll send your friends and family invitations to open their own shiny Gmail accounts.

As you can see Google does like those invites. By doing this they are making sure the system isn’t be filled up with crappy spammers and those who would abuse the service.

I’m willing to put this wager out. I will bet $50 plus that Gmail remains invite only after launch. If I’m wrong I’ll shell out 50 big ones to one of my lucky blog visitors. To get entered simply comment on this entry.