demand for limited gmail accounts spurs frenzy
May 24, 2004 5:27pm ET (Reuters)
By Lisa Baertlein
SAN FRANCISCO, May 24 (Reuters) - In a frenzy reminiscent of the dot-com mania of the late 1990s, Web users are bidding for invitations to join Google's test e-mail service before the company begins giving them away en masse.
Google's Gmail service will be supported by advertising and will be free for users when it launches for the public.
But those testing the service in its beta version are able to invite a small number friends to join, a loophole that has created a kind of an underground market on the Internet as people from around the world angle to secure the most desirable e-mail addresses.
As of Monday afternoon, there were nearly 300 Gmail listings on Web auction site eBay covering invitations and sales of already registered usernames. Some invitations were fetching bids of around $100, while a listing for the address "[email protected]" from a seller in Quebec City had so far only landed a bid of $1.29.
One poster on the Web site Gmail Swap (http://gmailswap.revhost.net/), which is not affiliated with Google, offered a certificate for a donkey ride down the Grand Canyon valued at $200 in exchange for a Gmail invitation.
Another person used as a lure an authentic Trojan costume that he said was from the Hollywood epic "Troy," starring Brad Pitt.
A resident of France appealed to users of the online community Craigslist for an account, offering in exchange a "beautiful postcard from Paris ... with a message of choice to anyone you like/love."
Another poster to the service vowed to pray for the person generous enough to hand over an invitation, with one exception: "Unable to repair male-pattern baldness."
Gmail has been in beta testing since April and offers significantly more storage than rival services from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail, but Google's plan to pay for the service with ads has angered some privacy advocates.
Early users of e-mail services often have the first crack at common or unique addresses. However, because Gmail is still in testing, Google could ask users to re-register when the official version is launched -- a scenario the company declined to comment on.
Meanwhile, the frenzied search for Gmail accounts already is the subject of satire on TheSpoof.com, which features a story headlined, "Woman offers first-born child for Gmail account."
