Psst…Hey Kid, wanna buy my Gmail account?
Apr 30, 2004 News and Blues
Another thanks to Chad’s Blog. Gmail accounts are in such high demand that people are willing to pay over $75 so far for them on Ebay. Who want’s my next invite? :>>
update: A german blogger predicted this would happen.
Gmail considering dropping Adwords?
Apr 30, 2004 Search and SEO
Maybe Google has been taking all the recent controversy to heart. A few hours ago, the targeted Adwords have disappeared from my Gmail account completely. They were there this morning, but gone now. This could be an indication that Google might be rethinking it’s advertising model with Gmail. Their sneak peak still shows a screenshot with the Adwords included, so I suspect this was an executive “Let’s try it and see” decision. Another theory: Google could be looking for specefic keywords before displaying Adwords. This would be more threatening than if the Adwords were persistent for every message. It would mean that Google would be watching my email a lot closer than I would want them too. To take the theory further, is it possible Google is choosing which accounts get Adwords to be displayed to them? That would be scary. For now, I won’t be sceptical. I’ll just assume it was a simple test to see what it would be like without the adwords. Depending on the news it makes, it’s very likely we’ll see them again.
Thanks to Chad for pointing out the Adwords were missing. That’s two of us. Are there any other Gmailers out there who noticed they are gone? More important: Any Gmail accounts that still have Adwords showing up?
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I’m Invited To Join Orkut and Gmail. I’m Sooo In.
Apr 30, 2004 Geeks and Gadgets
Thanks to a couple of friends, the weekly time I spend online on average has dramatically increased. Not only did I get an invite to Orkut (I think I was the last person on the planet), but I also received an invite to beta test Google’s Gmail.
It started on Wednesday. I come to work and noticed that my friend Travis had posted a story a few days prior about his invite to Orkut. Orkut is Google’s social networking service that is beta testing with millions of users. It was a skunkworks project by a software engineer who chose to use his 20% free time (and a lot of off-work time) on a Friendster like service. The only way to get an account on Orkut is to be invited by someone who already has one. Now that Travis had an account, I posted a comment and asked for an invite. He replied quickly and that same day I was IN. I felt special.
What worked with Orkut is working with GMail. Deny the people and they’ll want in. I didn’t wasn’t aware of GMail using a referal method, like Orkut, I only knew they had a sign-up-and-wait-for-us-to-call-you list. No clue about referrals. Imagine my surprise when I got an email from Chad Williams as an invite to try out Google’s Gmail service. I’ve been having different thoughts on Gmail lately, as a comment on Chad’s site shows:
…about Gmail – with all the attention and controversy it’s caused, it’s become the hot item. You must feel lucky to get in that early. Too bad they haven’t oppened to other bloggers out there that aren’t on blogger.com or blogspot. They are just messing with our emotions:
me: I want an account.
gmail: ok – but you need to let us scan all your email so we can show you ads.
me: um, nevermind.
gmail: no problem, you can’t have one anyway. Only blogger.com accounts can.
me: what?! my friends have one and I don’t. I want an account again.
gmail: sorry, not today. try again after we IPO.
Sheesh. I hate being pulled around by such dramatic antics. Never know what I want once they’re done toying with the emotions.
So now I have an both a Gmail account and an Orkut account. I might have reviews of different aspects of the services later, but I might be playing with my new online toys so much that I forget to post ever again. My social status is on the rise. I’m Elite. I’m Geek. I’m uber. I’m l33t! I could cry.
Oh yeah, in other news, Google filed for an IPO yesterday.