Wow, they just gave me five more invitations. Send me PMs or whatever.

You've got PM!

Anyone got anymore?
I want one please!
my email
jaidev AT paradise DOT net DOT nz

This is not directed at any one here in particular.

But I'm obviously missing a key point or something.

Why the fanatical mania to get gmail accounts???

Is it merely to ensure you get a good choice of email name there?
Or what?

I can think of lots of reasons NOT to have all of my email stored forever by one of the internet's largest portals: passwords, creditcard info, account information, paypal transactions etc.. all pass through my email semi-regularly, and I am unwilling to entrust long term storage of such to anyone outside of my home office here.

So.. like I said, I'm missing the point. What is it?

Cheers

Why the fanatical mania to get gmail accounts???

Yeah. What he said. What is the attraction?

What's the attraction? In short:

- It's the best web-mail interface out there, significantly faster and more usable than any IMAP front-end, and they even support SSL.

- Yes, I'm hesitant to trust Google with all my private e-mail, but I trust them more than I trust Microsoft, Yahoo, or anybody else. That said, if Google were to license GMail as an intranet appliance that you could run internally, much the same as their search appliance, then I'd be harassing our admins to license it yesterday.

- Did I mention how fast GMail is? Several of our students here have made GMail their exclusive e-mail client.

Oh, and I'm out of invitations again...

i got one early just to stake out my piece of namespace

A few reasons I can think of....

- Getting a good email address is part of it. People see Gmail doing to other webmails what the Google search engine did to Yahoo and Altavista. Then they look at their xyz209384wqx@hotmail.com email address, and realize they'd like to get in on the ground floor and have something a little easier to remember this time around.

- I am sure that there is also some component of it that is related to the feeling people get when there's a velvet rope up at a nightclub that they can't get past. If someone else has something that everyone says is cool, people find themselves wanting it, just to have it.

- Google as a company has such a powerful brand name right now amongst geeks. They do a great job of using this positive karma to generate grassroots support of their new technologies.

- Everything Google's done they've done pretty well. They can walk into an overcrowded product space with a rookie effort and basically blow away the competition. They do everything right from a PR standpoint, too

- Finally, Gmail is just another webmail, but as Dan said, it's very well done, even as a beta. The positive reviews in the press make people want to try it out as soon as they can.

I have no great desire, but enough to put mild effort into getting one. I wanted it because I'm tired of spelling out my email address's domain to people and I don't want to use a Yahoo or Hotmail account. I figure GMail will be big enough that people will begin to recognize it without me having to explain.

i never send passwords in email. passwords that come in email are changed immediately. i wouldn't put my credit card number in email that went there. it's nice for archving lists when i want better search than my imap clients give me

Why the fanatical mania to get gmail accounts???

For me, it's merely to get the account names I want before someone else snags them.

Just found this, by the way, haven't tried it yet:

Pop Goes The Gmail.

Note: It needs dotnet framework 1.1 to run.

I have no great desire, but enough to put mild effort into getting one.

Yeah, I share a bit of Mark's puzzlement, but I can agree with the "mild effort" approach, if only to try to nail a name better that "jim459882".

Looks like everybody's out of invites, but if anyone gets another, I could save you the trouble of putting it on eBay -- buy you a beer when next we meet in Amersfoort (2005? 2006?).

Beer me!

Pop Goes The Gmail works on my system. It has no trouble connecting to the Gmail server and checking the mail there. So the problem I'm having with connecting to the Gmail web site is entirely in IE for some reason. Hmph. Why don't I have trouble with any other sites? Argh.

Beer me!

Boy, turnaround time on this BBS is abysmal!

> Everything Google's done they've done pretty well.

That is my reason, I have faith in Google doing things right. I have little faith in Yahoo, or god forbid Microsoft, to do the same. I think they will eventually have a better user interface and better spam protection, and of course they already have more space. I have been running at somewhere between 85% and 97% at Hotmail for months now, and I begrudge having to go through and delete stuff just because of space issues.

if anybody still has an invite, i'd really love to try out the gmail service. please PM me for my email.

For the joy of screwing the one other guy in cyberspace with the same first initial and last name as me! Thanks a bunch, Rob!

Ahhh cause I want to direct all my mailing list emails there
Far too many in my inbox, I got too many hobbies..

Not to me too this to death, but me too!

Anybody gets a spare, let me know.

"...I begrudge having to go through and delete stuff just because of space issues. "

I do to. But my SBC Yahoo account has 2GB mail storage and 110MB extra briefcase storage for smaller shuttling.

Since Gmail has ads, and my yahoo doesn't, AND the Yahoo portal has really come into its own as far as feature set and functionality, I don't see much reason to head over to Gmail now.

Of course, the 2GB on Yahoo was a recent change, obviously in response to the Gmail fanaticism.

yeah I got an account early just so I could have just my last name. Oh wait I have my own server and domain with just my first name too...

Oh well

How long do I have to wait before they give me some invites to spread around?

Anyone have any invites left?

I have 2 invites right now, and no friends wanting them, so first two PM's gets them.

edit - My two are gone. I got the ones thus far pretty quickly, will let people here know when I get more.

All right this is toally weird. Messing around with the order of the programs "findempeg" and "empegface" in my StartUp group seems to have fixed the problem on my home system. I can get to gmail now. I'm totally stumped as to why.

let me know when an invite is avaliable. i want to know what all the fuss is about.

I'd love to have one too, if there's anything left


Reasons to get one:

I don't care about the 1Gig space. I have my own server with as much space I may ever need. But I will need an "independent" email address, possibily with web interface. On the other hand, I think Gmail is the best around and most feature rich, I tend to like Google, and since I'm not in a hurry I'll be happy to wait that it's widely available (or to get some invitations, of course). Also, like many others, I'll be hopefully able to chose my address without having to add ugly looking numbers at it

Taym

Invite sent!

Up for grabs:

EDIT: All have been used