Comments on: Get 'em while they're hot

Get 'em while they're hot

dogmatic — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:12:39 -0800

What would you swap for a gmail account? "Everyone's talking about Gmail, but it's still only a handful of lucky ducks who have snagged an account. And while the rest of us go hungry, you can be sure that the best email addresses are being gulped down by nefarious hooligans. gmail swap tells the people with Gmail about the people without."

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:28:14 -0800

Heh, bunch of wankers ;) I have nothing of value to swap. I will remain patient, in a zen kind of way, until Gmail opens it doors to the great unwashed.

By: wendell

wendell — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:30:09 -0800

I'll get in before JimBob, just because I washed...

By: mcsweetie

mcsweetie — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:31:06 -0800

I have a gmail account and it's great but you know, I don't really use it that much!

By: smackfu

smackfu — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:31:34 -0800

1) People have to create accounts to use that site. 2) They have to pick a username for that account. 3) That username is probably what they want as a Gmail username. 4) You can register those names now. 5) Profit!

By: dorian

dorian — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:32:59 -0800

I got offered it; I was like "eh." but then I like being my own email provider.

By: krunk

krunk — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:37:27 -0800

I have one, but it won't become my primary account until I finish grad school. After that, you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. (or warm, RSI'd fingers)

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:54:28 -0800

I think the real question is 'What would I swap for IMAP access to my gmail account?'

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Mon, 17 May 2004 18:57:16 -0800

On the other hand, I'm terrified to use mine lest it get sniffed out by spambots.

By: stet

stet — Mon, 17 May 2004 19:00:58 -0800

A MeFi account? Returns to lurking...

By: clevershark

clevershark — Mon, 17 May 2004 19:56:33 -0800

My buddy Tristan broke Gmail the first day he got his account. Also, incredible and disappointing as it may sound, Gmail is not web-standards-compliant and will not display if you're using Mozilla or its variants.

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:04:47 -0800

Gmail [...] will not display if you're using Mozilla or its variants. It absolutely will display using Mozilla.

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:05:02 -0800

and will not display if you're using Mozilla or its variants. Works fine in FireFox for me. Just checked it side-by-side with IE and they're identical.

By: subgenius

subgenius — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:10:19 -0800

clevershark, I use Firefox on Widows 2k and OS X 10.3 and haven't had any problems. Also, I don't understand from that article how your friend broke the gmail.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:18:27 -0800

works in firefox for me, but not in safari (don't know why)

By: t r a c y

t r a c y — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:20:47 -0800

will not display if you're using Mozilla or its variants works perfectly in firefox for me as well, and yep, side by side with ie they're identical. using xp.

By: Voivod

Voivod — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:28:56 -0800

Gmail works perfectly for me on Linux + Firefox. Actually I've been really impressed with it considering just how much javascript and dhtml are used behind the scenes. And no I aint tradin. :-)

By: clevershark

clevershark — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:30:52 -0800

Strange... he tried to log on today using moz 1.6 and all that displayed was a partial javascript string! Perhaps it was because he was using moz 1.6 on NT 4 (the office is a bit backward that way)?

By: turbodog

turbodog — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:32:18 -0800

Gmail works for me in FireFox as well, but you can't middle-click a message to open it in a new tab though.

By: esch

esch — Mon, 17 May 2004 20:39:05 -0800

A Klondike bar.

By: Latitude11

Latitude11 — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:05:57 -0800

Patience isn't really a virtue of mine.

By: shadow45

shadow45 — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:10:35 -0800

I got mine a week or two ago, and as soon as I get invite(s), I'll snag some vanity addresses. muahaha.

By: Marquis

Marquis — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:12:09 -0800

I hope everyone finds Gmail Swap useful! I launched it with humble ambitions, but it seems to be resonating with folks. All we need now are a few more people with invitations... (oh, and gmail works ok on Camino for Mac.)

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:15:21 -0800

A MeFi account?

By: pzarquon

pzarquon — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:19:52 -0800

Supply and demand... looks like lots of people who've got Gmail want some MeFi lovin'. Too bad I'm not willing to give up the blue. Posted something far more conventional myself... On Preview: mr.marx got it!

By: dogmatic

dogmatic — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:21:58 -0800

i got my shiny new gmail account today thanks to gmail swap, and just wanted to share the wealth. kudos to marquis on a job well done.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:23:06 -0800

Gmail is cool (thanks, friend MeFite who hooked me up), but it's not that cool. And everyone will be allowed in soon enough, no doubt. The interesting story here, I think, is Google has once again been very clever indeed in raising excitement to a veritable frenzy amongst the geekly by creating a barrier to entry, much as they did with the completely sucktastic Orkut. Not evil, yet, but sneaky.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:42:56 -0800

What would you swap for a gmail account? - A suckling pig? My toenail collection or a day's worth of skin flakes? A page of drunken dogerel from 1983? Memories of a not so memorable one-night-stand? A bit of pique cut with stale ennui ? A fart ? Things.

By: stet

stet — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:50:44 -0800

Mr.Marx and pzarquon: I was kidding when I posted about swapping my account here, of course, yet I am strangely bemused to find that this sorely underutilized account of mine is one of the Web's hot properties. And I wouldn't swap a thing for a Gmail account, I prefer to stick with short term, disposable email addresses.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Mon, 17 May 2004 22:00:57 -0800

Not caring in the slightest about Gmail must indicate that I am the awesomest dude in the town. Anyone want a ride... in my hotrod?

By: interrobang

interrobang — Mon, 17 May 2004 22:02:35 -0800

gmail is really nice, so far. I hope they continue to use their powers for good. I wouldn't trade my account for anything right now, though. And I doubt that there are that many people who are desperate to use "interrobang" as their username. Personally, though, when I first signed up for it, I paused for a long moment because I realized that since there weren't many gmail accounts available yet, I could practically take any username I wanted. My heart beat hard for about a half a minute, and I went with interrobang. I thought of a number of names, and how I could potentially profit from them, and decided not to be an asshole.

By: pzarquon

pzarquon — Mon, 17 May 2004 22:45:54 -0800

much as they did with the completely sucktastic Orkut. I agree... though of course, I mess around on Orkut occasionally. That said, I can't believe Orkut invitations are a popular trade offer. It's a little incestuous, and... they can't be that scarce anymore, can they?

By: t r a c y

t r a c y — Mon, 17 May 2004 23:22:47 -0800

from posting in this thread earlier i received a small avalanche of emails asking if i still had the invites google gave us a few weeks ago to give out to friends. well nope, of course i don't, sorry ! i immediately offered them to a couple of my fave mefites at the time. if they give us blogger.com users more invites at some point, they'll also be reserved for other friends so please don't mail me about it anymore. thanks !

By: quasistoic

quasistoic — Mon, 17 May 2004 23:44:43 -0800

That said, I can't believe Orkut invitations are a popular trade offer. It's a little incestuous, and... they can't be that scarce anymore, can they? Nope. Photomatt, the head cheese over at Wordpress, started offering invitations the moment he got his account. That said, I'm not sure if he still honors that offer... Regardless, I went ahead and posted an orkut invite as a swap. I'm normally restrictive with that sort of thing, but thinking about it, if someone were to give me a gift I'd been wanting for a while, they'd move a step up on the friend scale automatically. Regardless, if no one responds, I don't mind waiting until gmail opens public registrations. Someone finally registered "danny" as a username within the last few days (I'd been checking), which is the only thing I might have considered besides the usual quasistoic.

By: quasistoic

quasistoic — Mon, 17 May 2004 23:57:49 -0800

Man, screw me. Get yourself a week's worth of accomodation in Maui. And take me with you!

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Tue, 18 May 2004 00:11:08 -0800

Wow, It surprises me that people want a gmail account this bad. It is simply a status thing at this point, no? I happened to get a few through Blogger (all gone now) but had no idea there'd be such a frenzy. Its just webmail and they will probably open it up soon. A Mefi account on the other hand seems, at this point, to have higher value. Matt doesnt seem likely to do a full public open invitation ever again (as when I joined) but, especially after the last round, seems intent on setting up some sort of moderated contest or something. *ponders what to do with Winterfell

By: falconred

falconred — Tue, 18 May 2004 00:11:27 -0800

Apparently mathowie is willing to trade GMail for some pr0n!

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Tue, 18 May 2004 02:43:44 -0800

dorian - No invite, but I do love doing my own mail. And I ain't giving up my MeFi account either. (Proud o' that one.)

By: Pericles

Pericles — Tue, 18 May 2004 02:59:38 -0800

Don't give a shit about Gmail. Give me a decent mail client (in my case, Moz or Eudora) and my own POP3 mail server, without bells and whistles any day. My boss has different ideas, but for personal and side-project emails, I resist the temptation to store every bit of crap I ever write or receive

By: adampsyche

adampsyche — Tue, 18 May 2004 03:44:12 -0800

My only beef so far is that it won't work wiht a Palm browser on a Tungsten C.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Tue, 18 May 2004 04:16:56 -0800

starts elite club that only dorian, me and Samizdata are in so far..

By: quasistoic

quasistoic — Tue, 18 May 2004 04:53:59 -0800

dabitch - My opinion: Everyone needs one web-based backup email. I, too, use the email accounts from my own hosted domain, and I rarely use the webmail interface. For my secondary account, however, gmail sounds like the only desirable alternative.

By: roboto

roboto — Tue, 18 May 2004 04:58:28 -0800

Little inspires as much lust, desire, and hunger as the lure of teh Super Banana Dog!

By: dabitch

dabitch — Tue, 18 May 2004 05:52:12 -0800

quasistoic - why? I can fetch my email from my phone, and whenever I travel, I turn on squirrelmail so that I have my account 'webbased' and can check it at dinky cybercafes via http if I'm not bringing a computer along. Any reasons for web based email that I'm missing here?

By: dabitch

dabitch — Tue, 18 May 2004 05:53:00 -0800

that should be mobile phone/cellphone

By: yeahyeahyeahwhoo

yeahyeahyeahwhoo — Tue, 18 May 2004 06:18:36 -0800

this is crazy, its cool, but this is sortof weird, right? well, does anyone know how often gmail generates an invite?

By: madman

madman — Tue, 18 May 2004 06:23:50 -0800

Look, just get a 1 GB mail account and more at SpyMac eh?

By: dorian

dorian — Tue, 18 May 2004 06:28:11 -0800

our club has ponies, right?

By: quasistoic

quasistoic — Tue, 18 May 2004 06:33:56 -0800

September of last year, I went broke at the same time that my domain registration expired. Time for free web mail. ~~Some~~ Many people don't see a reason (nor do they have a reason) to own their own domains. They rely on email accounts provided by their employer or by their ISPs. What happens in the case of a change of employment, an ISP switch, or -gasp- a period of no home internet service (by choice or circumstance). Free webmail accounts (as an emergency back-up option) are really the only ways to go, unless I'm missing something here. For the casual internet user, free webmail is the perfect solution, often acting as a primary account for those who might not be named as the account holder for their internet connection (most residential ISPs provide one email account per connection). There are lots of reasons to hold a webmail account. Sadly, services like Yahoo! and hotmail, etc. just plain suck. Try emailing a set of full-sized digital pictures to your mom on Yahoo. I take no less than 20-30 pictures at a family event. Granted, I could just post them online for my mom to download herself, but my computer-illiterate uncle who lives in BFE can only figure out how to attatch them in an email. Let's say he drops one 800KB picture in each email. Great. The first few pictures make it into my mom's inbox. Then Yahoo starts bouncing all her other mail. Her credit card company tries to email her to notify her of excess spending in Tijuana. It gets bounced. They can't reach her at home because she's the one in Tijuana, so they suspend her credit card. Have you ever tried to call your credit card company from out of the country? If only her email inbox hadn't been full, she would have seen the notification and responded when she stopped into that internet cafe... In comes GMail. One gigabyte limit. Servers so fast and an interface so sleek that a 56k dialup in mexico makes checking your inbox a breeze. Imagine you were the one in TJ, and it wasn't your CC company, but your webhosting provider which wanted to verify suspicious activity because someone pulled an identity-theft sheet over your head. They've temporarily shut down your webhosting account until they can verify that everything's kosher. I hope you've listed a reliable secondary email address.

By: dorian

dorian — Tue, 18 May 2004 06:59:38 -0800

I won't argue that free webmail isn't good/useful/necessary, 'cos it is; or that yahoo/hotmail aren't crap, 'cos they are. one truly excellent free (also ad-free, spam-free) provider has been myrealbox (aka novell) although they've not been accepting new accounts for a while now. also, signing into webmail from anywhere outside your home is just asking for identity theft. sure sometimes it's unavoidable, but that doesn't lessen the risk any.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Tue, 18 May 2004 07:06:27 -0800

Well, I don't have a Maui vacation (jeez!) to offer, if any warm hearted Mefites who have been blessed by the google gods want to offer me an invite, I promise to loudly defend their every opinion in the blue, no matter how outlandish, and regularly start sycophantic MeTa threads praising their brilliant posts. Their enemies will be my enemies.

By: TNLNYC

TNLNYC — Tue, 18 May 2004 07:13:03 -0800

My experience with Gmail (thanks for the pug, clevershark) have been OK but not good enough that I would consider moving to it full time. At the current time, I'm thinking that it might serve as a nice backup but has a long way to go. It doesn't work on the combination of Mozilla/NT, on my treo 600 and on Safari. That alone does it in. Then there's the fact that what goes in doesn't come out. It's like Gmail is the new cockroach motel. As far as the swap is concerned: come on people, it's only email. Sure it's from google but eventually, it will be just like any other free email. Does google have such cachet that anything it does is worth money?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 18 May 2004 07:33:27 -0800

(thanks for the pug, clevershark) He gave you a dog? All I had to do for my gmail was mention it to a freind (thanks, you know who).

By: angry modem

angry modem — Tue, 18 May 2004 07:46:14 -0800

man, gmail's nice, but seriously. this is just dumb. Anyone want a low ICQ number?

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Tue, 18 May 2004 08:46:01 -0800

<sarcasm> Oh yeah, it's so hard to get a GMail account. Gee, if you use Blogger at all, you were able to go and get an account.. or if you're a Google Researcher.. you're able to go and get an account..</sarcasm> Seriously, I found that I could sign up through either of the above methods, and I'm sure most people who would be interested would have a Blogger account already, no? Or didn't everyone on Blogger get an invite? I mean, I rarely use my account (total of 40 or so posts) and I saw the link...

By: Marquis

Marquis — Tue, 18 May 2004 08:56:31 -0800

i think you underestimate the number of people hoping for a "name-brand" Gmail account. it's certainly not restricted to the (hefty, admittedly) handful of folks who use blogger. furthermore, you needed to be an "active" blogger (whatever that nebulous term means) to receive the offer. personally, i had an old, long-dormant blog with 30 posts, and then had made my firsts (4) posts of the year in the last week, but didn't receive the gmail link. and new blogger signups weren't eligible. which isn't to say the kerfuffle is justified. i'm pretty flabbergasted by some of the offers being presented.

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Tue, 18 May 2004 09:07:32 -0800

nope wackybrit, not everyone got the invite. i use blogger on one site so that the office staff in my department can easily update the news page, without me worrying about having to teach anyone HTML or giving anyone besides myself access to the server. the site's been live for a while now but no invite for me. as a college teacher i can't understand why so many of my students stick with their free webmail as their primary address - they pay big bucks for a university account with spamassassin, squirrelmail web interface, pop3/imap compliant server (depending on how they want to treat it), 50 megs storage, and personal web space. can send/receive up to 50 megs at a time with a mail client. but they keep their hotmail account and use the university account as a throwaway spam-collector when registering for things online. one of our lab techs does the same thing, and it's annoying as hell to me when i send out the paper we're supposed to be going over in lab meeting and it gets bounced back to me, every time, because her free web mail won't accept any attachments over 1 meg... that, and i don't understand why anyone would willingly subject themselves to advertising when reading mail. my father-in-law uses hotmail, but i set him up with the hotmail popper pop3 interface to make things easier for him (they keep redesigning the website, and it throws him off - he's not exactly a technophile...)

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Tue, 18 May 2004 09:09:28 -0800

Ah, it also seems the gmail box isn't available in the new Blogger design, although supposedly this will be resolved soon ;-) Thanks for the clarification, Marquis.. I didn't realize they'd have so much control over who got the link and who didn't!

By: lilboo

lilboo — Tue, 18 May 2004 09:44:11 -0800

Well timing is everything jonmc. You are just lucky I didn't see that trip to Maui first.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Tue, 18 May 2004 10:07:57 -0800

When my university email account expired, I set up a domain just for email. Recently, the day the domain name expired, I thought the company would just automatically charge my account. Instead, they let the domain expire, and then, while I was still having emails forwarded to my cell phone, I couldn't respond to anything because I couldn't access the account for 24+ hours (the time it took for the domain renewel to go through). And that's when I got an important job interview email. If I would have set up the forwarder to gmail before then, i would have been in a pretty good position. My other pro-Gmail position is that people in my band frequently deny getting emails from me, and now i can save them all to prove I sent them.

By: dolface

dolface — Tue, 18 May 2004 10:11:26 -0800

get your gmail here

By: keswick

keswick — Tue, 18 May 2004 10:42:17 -0800

Okay, weirdness afoot. At the bottom of my gmail account, I have this message: You are currently using 12 MB (0%) of your 1000000 MB. Do any of you other gmail peeps have this? Did they up their quota to 1000 gigs, am I smoking crack, or is it just a glitch?

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Tue, 18 May 2004 10:45:36 -0800

Wow, dolface, that's some ebay craziness....

By: drezdn

drezdn — Tue, 18 May 2004 10:58:19 -0800

After checking ou the ebay link, I feel stupid for giving one to my mom.

By: chaz

chaz — Tue, 18 May 2004 11:26:30 -0800

keswick mine still says 1000mb. Maybe you got a super special upgrade?

By: keswick

keswick — Tue, 18 May 2004 11:31:08 -0800

Well, I just emailed them. Maybe it's a glitch. I guess we'll find out.

By: danny the boy

danny the boy — Tue, 18 May 2004 11:32:46 -0800

I think those questioning why people would offer so much for an e-mail account are missing the point--people aren't offering $25 Amazon gift certificate merely for a gmail account. They're offering it for the possibility of getting their preferred userid (before the service opens to the public) on what is likely going to be the only e-mail address they're going to ever need. I would gladly pay $50 for daniel@gmail.com, but got "stuck" with my firstandlastname@gmail.com

By: perplexed

perplexed — Tue, 18 May 2004 11:49:11 -0800

I believe they are restricting common names to prevent a spammer from running through a list of them. I was in pretty early and could not get 'torrez'.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Tue, 18 May 2004 11:50:29 -0800

Also, incredible and disappointing as it may sound, Gmail is not web-standards-compliant and will not display if you're using Mozilla or its variants. Works for me in Mozilla 1.7b. Or didn't everyone on Blogger get an invite? Nope, I've had a blogger account for years and I didn't get one. (But groovetastic Mefi helped a sister out...to spare anyone getting slammed with begging requests, I'll not post a name...but you know who you are, you fanatasico love muffin of doom.)

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Tue, 18 May 2004 12:29:32 -0800

Hrm, perhaps its just my native midwestern skepticism, but I have doubts as to whether gmail already lives up to the hype, and will live up to the hype once it goes live with thousands of people. Of course, I'm also the killjoy who points out that the segway is an overly technical solution in search of a problem. The claims are so inflated that I have a hard time seeing how they can deliver.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Tue, 18 May 2004 12:37:54 -0800

You are currently using 12 MB (0%) of your 1000000 MB. Do any of you other gmail peeps have this? Did they up their quota to 1000 gigs, am I smoking crack, or is it just a glitch? posted by keswick at 10:42 AM PST on May 18 Hmmm. My account says this too.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Tue, 18 May 2004 13:15:20 -0800

Couch. And it worked, too. I have a couch on the way this Monday. Flag it "Best Of," if you like. Hee.

By: justgary

justgary — Tue, 18 May 2004 13:15:28 -0800

I have a yahoo, hotmail, myrealbox etc. account and gmail is far superior to any webmail service I've tried. People keep comparing it to running their own mail service, which is comparing apples to oranges. They both have their place. As far complaints about the service not doing this or that, everyone seems to forget it's beta. It is that cool people...these grapes are not sour. I have 4 accounts and gave away 3 (paid for none), and I'm determined to take all the cool names before the service rolls out. </evil laugh)

By: mojo80

mojo80 — Tue, 18 May 2004 13:51:26 -0800

I've let them know of the various issues I've been experiencing (cookies, security settings, not receiving email I sent myself, etc.) and they're apparently all known problems and they're working on it. Yay for beta testing. I can say it's a heck of a lot better than the ISP I support. Our webmail sites have been out of beta since last year, and we've been promising to offer an address book for about 9 months now. Plus you get session timeout errors if you use almost any type of firewall. Of course everyone wants their username now because it's not going to be available once it's opened to the public. I can't wait to use this account as my primary e-mail address, mostly because I got a kick-ass username but.. A lot of things need to change first. And I hope Google actually does that soon. Because the hype is just annoying at this point.

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Tue, 18 May 2004 13:56:26 -0800

Hmmm. My account says this too Now mine does as well. It didn't earlier.

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Tue, 18 May 2004 14:09:19 -0800

I still don't understand why this is supposed to be so exciting. No matter how good gmail might be, it's still webmail, and HTML remains a pathetic UI framework. No matter how much work Google's engineers put into it, they simply can't beat a standalone mail client for speed and ease of use. So what's the point? Sure, they've got their own hotmail now, which is great for their business model, but why are you guys so hyped up over it?

By: Tryptophan-5ht

Tryptophan-5ht — Tue, 18 May 2004 14:21:32 -0800

saxman, you must have the stand alone installed to use it. webmail can be snatched from any computer connected to the web - no waiting.

By: thomcatspike

thomcatspike — Tue, 18 May 2004 14:39:55 -0800

Of course everyone wants their username now because it's not going to be available once it's opened to the public. As in; someone obtains your name before you, first come first serve or something else? Who would want to be me, user or birth name. Maybe I'm lucky having an uncommon name.

By: t r a c y

t r a c y — Tue, 18 May 2004 14:55:12 -0800

i feel a tad cheated since the hype is all about getting the username you want... well i didn't get the username i wanted because my first name is one letter short of the 6 character minimun allowed. i had to go with my stupid internet nickname instead *sulk*

By: ajpresto

ajpresto — Tue, 18 May 2004 15:31:46 -0800

So, since everybody else has been helped out by a MeFite, it's my turn to whine and beg. Anybody wanna invite me? My profile has my info.

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Tue, 18 May 2004 15:46:19 -0800

saxman, you must have the stand alone installed to use it. webmail can be snatched from any computer connected to the web - no waiting. Yeah, I see that, but it seems like such a marginal advantage that it hardly justifies the hype. I'm sure it's a lifesaver if you're going on a six-month backpack tour of Europe, or something, but are there really millions of people out there who travel all the time and don't have a laptop? I mean, how many computers do you use in a day? One at work, one at home....?

By: mojo80

mojo80 — Tue, 18 May 2004 15:59:52 -0800

Mars Saxman, marginal advantage? Last year, I talked to countless customers who whined and complained about how my company didn't have webmail yet. It was the most commonly-requested feature that year alone. Webmail is such a basic feature, it's almost shameful if an ISP doesn't offer it. Webmail is useful because not everybody can afford a laptop, not everyone uses the internet at home, not everyone has their own work station, not everyone likes the way e-mail clients work, etc. etc. etc....

By: dg

dg — Tue, 18 May 2004 16:19:19 -0800

Also, if you travel a lot, it can be difficult to access your e-mail from overseas. Most hotels provide facilities for web connection in-room now, but Internet Cafes or Business Centres are a pretty much guaranteed commodity no matter where you go.

By: mojo80

mojo80 — Tue, 18 May 2004 16:29:57 -0800

Another thing, many ISPs protect their outgoing mail servers and if you're using say, a hotel connection, it's doubtful they'll have an SMTP server handy.. I mean obviously there are ways to bypass all of this but for most users, that's too complicated! (No, I don't work for AOL.. but close). People just want to access e-mail and webmail is such a fast and easy way to do it.

By: i_cola

i_cola — Tue, 18 May 2004 16:55:21 -0800

dg: Not for me. I'm coming to the end of a 6-month trip & have had few problems with laptop & own email account on server back home. Sooo glad i don't have to even care about yet another webmail blah blah. ZMailzzzzzzzzzz......

By: danny the boy

danny the boy — Tue, 18 May 2004 17:06:07 -0800

Uhm. Well, actually, I prefer gmail to my standalone client. Gmail is fast. Almost too fast. (Well, I have been noticing slowdowns since the beta exploded) It's not only the best webmail out there, it's the best web app out there. And it's still beta! And full of bugs! I don't care about having another e-mail account--I'm waiting for IMAP access, so I can check my real e-mail with their interface.

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Tue, 18 May 2004 17:11:51 -0800

Oh, and it does work okay on Safari, even though it claims it won't. Of course, I haven't tried every feature, but I can view mails, send them, etc.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Tue, 18 May 2004 17:32:01 -0800

wackybrit, you're right--that's weird--when i first got it, it didn't at all work there.

By: justgary

justgary — Tue, 18 May 2004 18:33:24 -0800

you're right--that's weird--when i first got it, it didn't at all work there. Not weird, just beta. I'm sure a lot of things will change before its completely out to the public.

By: sharpener

sharpener — Tue, 18 May 2004 19:51:51 -0800

you guys are all geeks.

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Wed, 19 May 2004 08:30:50 -0800

--I'm waiting for IMAP access, so I can check my real e-mail Okay, now *that* would be pretty cool.

By: roboto

roboto — Wed, 19 May 2004 09:22:20 -0800

SuperBananaDog! offer garnered an invite from a gmail benefactor! Thanks GmailSwap!

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 19 May 2004 16:54:55 -0800

You don't want google ads, block 'em with your hosts file. Don't know how? Learn. It's as easy as.

By: Epenthesis

Epenthesis — Wed, 19 May 2004 17:02:16 -0800

It does work on Safari, and quite well -- except the part about initializing your account. That you have to do on another browser.

By: calwatch

calwatch — Wed, 19 May 2004 21:03:35 -0800

Lots of metafilter invitations, but no filepile? For shame.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Wed, 19 May 2004 22:17:47 -0800

I have an extra pile account. You'd need to give me a helluva lot more than a gmail account to get it, though.

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Thu, 20 May 2004 20:32:01 -0800

Hey, Stav, about two gmail accounts? Actually, three: two unformed and maleable, one with a fixed name (leaving only one lonesome account for me to keep using).

By: onlyconnect

onlyconnect — Thu, 20 May 2004 21:39:15 -0800

Hey!

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Thu, 20 May 2004 21:52:54 -0800

Drat, caught cheating!

By: onlyconnect

onlyconnect — Thu, 20 May 2004 22:02:08 -0800

I guess you're off the hook if you can arrange it within the next 37 hours. . . Go!

By: Kwantsar

Kwantsar — Sun, 23 May 2004 00:55:07 -0800

I would gladly pay $50 for daniel@gmail.com, but got "stuck" with my firstandlastname@gmail.com so we are supposed to PAY for spam-perfect mailboxes? no thanks!

By: Space Coyote

Space Coyote — Sun, 23 May 2004 17:36:55 -0800

Top 100 Reasons Why I Want a GMail Account. Pretty funny.

By: dg

dg — Tue, 25 May 2004 17:28:09 -0800

Cool - my offer of "absolutely nothing" for an account worked!

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Tue, 25 May 2004 18:35:18 -0800

Dg, do you now get to invite people? Hmmmm?

By: dg

dg — Thu, 27 May 2004 15:41:13 -0800

No, afraid not. Although I do keep checking to see if any invites have been added to my account.

By: quasistoic

quasistoic — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 16:02:31 -0800

I know this thread is dead and no one's bothering to check it anymore, but someone shot my pony. Quasistoic@gmail.com has been snatched by a prospector. This is the first instance I've seen of my username being used by anyone besides myself on any service, so I'm concluding this must've been done by a prospector who either read this thread or saw one of my postings on gmailSwap as described by smackfu:

1) People have to create accounts to use that site. 2) They have to pick a username for that account. 3) That username is probably what they want as a Gmail username. 4) You can register those names now. 5) Profit!

The bastards. If it was anyone here, contact me so I can finagle it from you somehow.