Where can I get a Gmail invite?

April 11, 2004 12:29 PM

Evidently, everyone and their mother has a gmail account and is posting screenshots. Any idea how those of us who aren't even related to everyone might get invited?
posted by timeistight to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

(holds breath..ponders..lets go)
posted by Gyan at 12:55 PM on April 11, 2004

Don't look at me; I gave them TWO of my other email addresses at the bottom of this page (my yahoo and one of my wendellwit.com aliases), and haven't heard a murmer back yet. (AND I'm a member at Orkut with no disciplinary actions...)

What's a guy gotta do, indeed?
posted by wendell at 1:06 PM on April 11, 2004

Hmm... seems to me that Google search just shows the same set of screenshots (from fury.com) posted over and over and over again. Maybe they're not giving out quite as many accounts as it seems.
posted by reklaw at 1:48 PM on April 11, 2004

From what the invitation indicated, Google staff (including the Blogger team) made a list and sent personal invites, which were only good for one reg. So in answer to your question: no, probably not, but you could write the corporate communications folks at Google and see if they don't laugh at you... or, you know, post on Ask MeFi and see if they notice.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 1:55 PM on April 11, 2004

I think they're just giving accounts to friends of staff that are working on the system. After they work some more bugs out, I assume they'll widen the beta.

It's not easy to write an email app from scratch, I'm sure they've still got tons of work to do on it and don't want to release something most folks will be unimpressed by.
posted by mathowie at 2:06 PM on April 11, 2004

Matt, (I know you're going to hate me for asking this, but...) why then did you say "everyone and their mother" has a gmail account? Does YOUR mother have one? (And wouldn't The Brad be a more logical person to stress-test the spam controls?)
If anybody else ends up with wendell[at]gmail.com or oneswellfoop[at]gmail.com, I'm blaming YOU.
posted by wendell at 7:33 PM on April 11, 2004

Response by poster: I think he meant "everyone (who is anyone) and their mother".
posted by timeistight at 9:05 PM on April 11, 2004

My friend who is a journalist for Motley Fool got one. I think you need to be a "meta" person someone with a lot of connections (links) to other people.. that would be a very Google-ish method.
posted by stbalbach at 9:34 PM on April 11, 2004

I think you need to be a "meta" person someone with a lot of connections (links) to other people..

MetaPerson. I like it.

MetaFilter: Home of the MetaPeople.

Anyway yes, I've noted a lot of screenshots floating around the weblogs I frequent, but half those people happen to work together at Google now. I think the beta is still fairly tight at the moment.
posted by Tubes at 10:06 PM on April 11, 2004

Metaperson is the new categorization for our generation, and stbalback is the next Douglas Coupland.
posted by mecran01 at 10:09 AM on April 12, 2004

That would make me a MetaPeon, then....
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:11 AM on April 12, 2004

...because I have lots of connections to completely irrelevant people.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:13 AM on April 12, 2004