Gmail Invites

[Quinn]

I have a bunch of Gmail invites sitting unused. If anyone wants one let me know.

[MitchM]

What's a Gmail?

Mitch

[Bob I]

Yes indeed, ditto. :question:

[muck]

Yes, what is this Gmail you speak of??

[Delphinus]

I'll take one! I'll take one! Ooooh, how geeky. :biggrin:

[kuatto]

you can store a heck of alot of emails with just one :biggrin: what are you looking for in trade or are you giving them away?

[christyf5]

Its a new email service from Google. They are offering 1000 MB of storage space.

[Quinn]

http://www.gmail.com
http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/gmail.html

Google's email service, currently not open to the public, beta membership invitations have been in great demand, mostly because the first few thousand users obviously have dibs on any number of memorable addresses. Imagine getting dave@hotmail.com, same thing. In the spring when it was brand new invitations were selling on Ebay for suprising sums, and addresses like hacker@gmail.com and billclinton@gmail.com commanded decent sums as well.

As Tony alluded, it's mostly a geek thing at this point in time.

[MitchM]

Google has way too much money at it's disposal now...

Mitch

[Quinn]

:smile: Agreed, although the IPO wasn't as successful as they hoped. I think part of the reason they can get away with giving a gig of space is because not everyone uses their gig or even close. I've been using it as my primary email account since April 30 and I've only used 16 megabytes of space, and all I've deleted is Canreef PM notifications. :mrgreen:

Jim, I enjoyed your cardinal for several months there, so you can certainly enjoy a Gmail address gratis. What's your current email address?

[MitchM]

I understand that Google's lower than hoped for return was because the company is seen as one with no substantial future vision, and not much organizational business structure. Hopefully they're trying to diversify.
Storage is becoming an issue in the dental industry, with the advent of digital radiography, but security is an even bigger issue.
How secure would this Gmail be, I wonder?

Mitch

[Quinn]

Yes I read a similar thing. In the Post a writer was criticizing the management's relative inexperience with business and their slogan, "don't be bad" or something to that effect. Frankly I still don't really understand how companies like Yahoo and Google can get by, giving away their product and surviving strictly on ad returns. On the other hand somehow spam persists and I really don't understand how anyone profits from that, so I guess anything is possible. And then again, email addresses are fairly cheap, and there are probably a few people out there loose with their credit card looking to decrease their mortgage and increase other things.

Google has a lot of competitors as well. There are new, relatively unknown email providers offering a gig of space now, and other companies cloning Google's search systems. Searching is a big business and apparently other companies are using Google and refining its results to provide links more relevant to specific groups, such as the financial community, etc.

As far as security goes, I have no idea, but I'm sure their just as secure as any other public data host, which probably isn't very. I am sure if someone knew there was particularly sensitive information contained within the Gmail servers, they could find a way to access it. Of course anything can be reverse engineered... the only real security in these terms is not being online at all.

[Delphinus]

Ah, bummer, delphinus is taken. Big surprise, all the Greek names get snapped up. :sad:

[MitchM]

lol Tony...:smile:

The big thing with security is that there are profitable businesses willing to pay for it. Offering free email storage is a good way to test your systems, I guess.

We're emailing more and more digital x-rays, and we're getting to the point of being able to consult in real time with experts in different countries.
More and more companies are approaching us with offers of sercure off-site data storage.

(sorry, I guess I'm taking away from your Gmail offer.... :mrgreen: )

Mitch

[EmilyB]

yah, dat is is da german way..... :lol: :mrgreen: :razz:

[MitchM]

You be careful Deb.....my networking skills are improving!

Big brother may be watching.... :robot:

Mitch :mrgreen: