Comments on: More Google evil?

By: Kevin

Kevin — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:55:00 +0000

Could you please send me a gmail invite? I guess I must be one of the few that hasn’t been offered one yet. Thanks.

By: TDavid

TDavid — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 01:14:00 +0000

[Kevin:6] Kevin and Andrew, you both have been sent invites.

By: Andrew Ferguson

Andrew Ferguson — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 03:10:00 +0000

I would like a Gmail invite if you stil have one.

By: TDavid

TDavid — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 09:00:00 +0000

I should add to my last comments that inviting people for beta testing is a natural part of the business and has been for a long time. Heck, our whole family goes up and does beta testing at Microsoft. I think this type of invitation — by the company — is great.

It’s the extended *public invite-only beta testing periods* where other users are used as the distribution mechanism that I take issue with. Fine, have a set period of time: one month, one quarter, whatever, but don’t leave it open for more than a year and tell people lame excuses about concerns over server space when you are out offering server space to others.

Make sense?

By: TDavid

TDavid — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:55:00 +0000

That’s a good question, Adam. Yes, they are *invites* and voluntary, but my point is that after this much time has gone by invites are no longer necessary. So, essentially their users in a position of authority over inviting people who mostly don’t care about being invited anyway.

Why are you — or I — in the position to have to deal with invites like these? I’ve already said before that I don’t think this invite-only idea of marketing is very wise for a number of reasons (do a search for that post, if intererested). It leaves the people who don’t get invites feeling like they aren’t part of somebody’s club.

I’m not into elitism and cliques, as you can probably tell.

It’s not the presence of lots of invites making Google “evil” or not (and actually, I’m just asking the question in this post), it’s telling the truth about why they are doing things, which is something that people bag on Microsoft at every turn about. Just look at people annoyed over them changing their mind and deciding to release IE 7 before Longhorn.

If Googles doesn’t have enough server space, fine, then they don’t, but then they offer up a mixed message they offer up web space to WikiPedia (which their offer included no sort of advertising, so they were basically donating that space). I think it’s great (and not, not, not evil) that they offered the space to WikiPedia, but don’t you see the sequence of events at least … curious?

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:24:00 +0000

tdavid… why do you feel obligated to give out the invites?
I have 47 invites sitting in my queue right now, and they’re only going out to people I know and like and trust. I don’t feel obligated to give ‘em out to the world. They’re called INVITES, not “you’re obligated to distribute these things to the world’ites”

Long story short: I don’t think the presence of lots of invites makes Google evil.

By: FranciscoIV

FranciscoIV — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 04:20:00 +0000

50! LOL I have 250 Gmail Invites I can give away!!!! I think it’s just a timing issue… (i.e. their marketing plan hasn’t run it’s course to where they open it up yet).