my GMail theory...

[GT Web]

After that two week rush, I see now that invites are nearly worthless...

I believe Google saw what was going on over at places like Ebay and decided to make more invites available to destroy the market...

It certainly seems to have worked, does anyone else agree with my theory?

Suddenly, 3 invites appear right away, instead of 2 appearing a couple weeks after sign up...

 

[GiantDomains]

what's the big deal anyway ...

 

[GT Web]

I dont know, its just a funny observation...how a free email service turned into a massive landrush for a couple of weeks...

of course, I get my GMail account from a friend as soon as prices jump down...lol

 

[Edwin]

Actually, I think it's a brilliant marketing strategy by Google, and has little or nothing to do with "resale values". Basically, by giving every Gmail user 3 invites to hand out (and by some accounts, giving more invites to people who successfully persuade friends to sign up) they're getting people to build the service very fast, organically, totally for free!

At the same time they're going to have less problems relating to spammers joining the service than "average" free email services would, since who on earth would go out of their way to invite a spammer to join?

 

[Bender]

I believe this was scheduled for testing purposes, to see how the system works.First of all, a limited number of testers was available (let's say X).After a while those X numbers could make X invites...so we have 2X users.After a while they could send other 2 invites...so , at any given time, google knows the number of users, this number is growing but they control everything.
If they let the people to signup after the first X testers, something could be wrong, and they could look sloppy.

Meanwhile Yahoo! increased the free inboxes to 100Mb...

 

[dax]

Agree with Edwin and ITWEBTEAM - it has nothing to do with prices, it is for system testing purposes. You cannot go public with a low load, you must test it in the state of the higher load...

 

[bocajohnh]

After that two week rush, I see now that invites are nearly worthless...

IMO, The value of an invite was/is related to the value of the email address you get. In the webmaster/DN world, we already have the ability to have Anything@ we want. For the hundreds of millions of AOL, yahoo and hotmail users, their choices are limited to the scraps left over by 10 - 25 years of name pickings by others.

The value of a gmail invite is directly proportional to the quality of the email name you get. When the invites were not for sale on ebay yet, Pre May, you could get MichaelJ, FrodoBaggins, or Computer. In May, when they sold for $100-$200, it was maybe a MichaelY, or ComputerMan, Disney or DisneyChannel. Now that they're $5, colors, dictionary words, FrodoB, First intital, last name and such are all getting scooped up.

When this service is launched to the public, and an invite is free, MichaelJ2010, ComputerMan23 and other crappy names will be all there is left.

 

[Jernet]

IMO, The value of an invite was/is related to the value of the email address you get. In the webmaster/DN world, we already have the ability to have Anything@ we want. For the hundreds of millions of AOL, yahoo and hotmail users, their choices are limited to the scraps left over by 10 - 25 years of name pickings by others.

The value of a gmail invite is directly proportional to the quality of the email name you get. When the invites were not for sale on ebay yet, Pre May, you could get MichaelJ, FrodoBaggins, or Computer. In May, when they sold for $100-$200, it was maybe a MichaelY, or ComputerMan, Disney or DisneyChannel. Now that they're $5, colors, dictionary words, FrodoB, First intital, last name and such are all getting scooped up.

When this service is launched to the public, and an invite is free, MichaelJ2010, ComputerMan23 and other crappy names will be all there is left.

lol, I totally agree. I figure I will soon be seeing spam from gmail accounts that are 30 characters long.

 

[skylight]

this is a very good viral marketing strategy.

the concept, although it is free, but you cant get it, makes it looks valuable.
it becomes high demand.

Now, even there are many invites out there, there are still demand for it.

 

[Prosperous]

this is a very good viral marketing strategy.

Yep, gotta love it. Of course, it already started when they released their GMail press release right before April 1, so that many thought they were launched on April 1 and thus must be an April Fools joke. Which generated quite a buzz. And then they fuled that fire by changing their GMail 'sales pitch' blurb on their site throwing in phrases like 'heck yeah', which made it look even more like an April Fools joke... But it wasn't! :-D Top Notch stuff!

 

[bocajohnh]

Re: viral marketing posts by skylight and beshopalula

Agree with you both on the viral marketing. Now to take it one step further, Google's IPO. The buzz around gmail and the fact that yahoo reacted will have everyone whipped into a frenzy for when it counts - the IPO. If I'm not mistaken the IPO is a dutch auction, where everyone will bid up the share prices, vaulting these guys into the world of the rich and famous.

Oh yah, and regarding gmail and yahoo's reaction? Google can't comment, they are in the "quiet period" leading up to the IPO. Brilliant, they can't say anything to screw up the buzz and the momentum.

 

[NameWolf]

I fully agree with Edwin's comments here. Controlled growth is what they are doing and they are using a very clever marketing strategy as well to make sure that the invites do not go to the hands of spammers and other mallicious parties.

NW

 

[clemzonguy]

I have no desire for a spammed filled inbox or for them to store my private mail on their servers. I like having my own domains and using whatever email address I want. I do not see any thrill with having a gmail account. They created a short-term scarcity to get more buzz and then continued the viral marketing by giving people more invites. I could see the dropping prices on this forum and that clued me into the fact that they are worthless in the end. Google has obtained mostly what it wanted to begin with which is the email addresses from all you guys who signed up with them. Right now I would much rather give my business to yahoo rather than help fuel this money hungry beast that will use a dutch auction to drive up prices of their own stock. If they weren't scared about new competitors coming into the market they wouldn't be using such tactics.

 

[David G]

I have no desire for a spammed filled inbox or for them to store my private mail on their servers.......Right now I would much rather give my business to yahoo rather than help fuel this money hungry beast.....

If anything, the oppsite is so as G manages to delete spams very well with a very good built in spam filter, before they hit the inbox. Plus I don't think you need to worry about them reading your personal emails. LOL.

G deletes far more spams for me automatically than inbox emails I end up getting. Also, not so sure they are so money hungry as for the first time many small domainers make money from their websites what with Adsense giving zillions of us some income at basically no cost.

Personally I love Google. Yahoo and others earn zilch for me. G is the main place giving domainers with websites nice revenue at no actual cost.

 

[clemzonguy]

Personally I love Google. Yahoo and others earn zilch for me. G is the main place giving domainers with websites nice revenue at no actual cost.

They denied me for adsense stating that I had dynamic content or something along those lines. I love their adwords program. Very honest and transparent. Overture (now owned by yahoo) is the devil. Do not support these people. The guy was rude on the phone with me and they go through your money fast without many results.

Maybe I will try gmail out for one of my alternative emails. I've got $15 in paypal how many invites will that buy me? :-D