From: Jamis Buck Date: 2004-12-03T05:25:38+09:00 Subject: Re: SOT gmail invites Stefan Schmiedl wrote: > On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 12:34:29 +0900, > Jamis Buck wrote: > >>Lyndon Samson wrote: >> >>>Ok, who missed out, I've got a couple left. >> >>Ok, I just can't stand it anymore. I'm not necessarily interested in an >>invite, but I'm dying to hear from those who have gmail accounts: what >>is it about gmail that you like so much? Or is it one of those things >>that you have to actually *try*, in order to understand, like dependency >>injection? >> > > > Warning: Rambling rant ahead. > > My personal take is that they just wanted to make sure that > *everybody* is keen on getting an account. Make it exclusive, > by invitation only. Seeding it amongst the geekest of geeks, > first generation invites went quickly. But seemingly invited > users got their own share of invites. > > Now it has become a practical test for the claim that every two people > in the U.S. can build a chain of mutually known persons of maximum > length 6. If that is true, how many invites per person would you need to > reach saturation? > > Make people sign up and store their information on your company disks? > Easy. Instead of crawling and begging them for their data, be a snob > and make it a challenge for them. They will fall for it. > > On my box I have gobs of gigabytes for email storage, no ads > and a very fast interface via procmail, formail, mutt and grep. > I will not entrust a company with a service I can provide just > as good. I will be the last one without a Google email address. Phew. Okay. For a minute there I thought I must be the only one skeptical of the "gmail hype". :) I, too, am quite happy with my existing email arrangement. That being the case, I suppose there is little (if any) reason for me to move to gmail. Thanks to everyone that responded! - Jamis -- Jamis Buck jgb3@email.byu.edu http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis