Google starts a new net craze

Sunday Herald, The, Jun 27, 2004 by Jenifer Johnston

The race for Gmail e-mail accounts - the service launched on a trial basis by internet search engine firm Google in April - has created a new web phenomenon of account trading, with desperate Gmail wannabes offering money, holidays and bizarre gifts in exchange for an account invite.

Just a few thousand trial Gmail accounts were offered on an invitation-only basis last month. Account holders, who can access a gigabyte of storage on the free Google service (vastly more space than rival e-mail services) get the opportunity to invite selected friends onto Gmail - and it's those invites that are being swapped for everything from a two-night all-inclusive holiday in Dubai to postcards of San Francisco, or even just good karma.

While the accounts were selling on Ebay for up to (pounds) 75, scores of trading sites have opened that offer kitschy trades instead.

Sean Michaels, 22, who was born and grew up in Stirling, is running gmailswap.com from his home in Canada. "I started swapping Gmail accounts about six weeks ago when my friend became totally frustrated at not getting one.

"Paying for something from Google on a big corporate machine like Ebay just felt wrong, so I wanted to come up with something as charming and quirky as Google itself.

"I'm trying to encourage people to be as creative and fun with what they can swap. I've been flabbergasted at how honest and, frankly, nice people are being to each other."

Michaels is now getting 20,000 new members a day to gmailswap.com, with 500,000 daily page impressions.

"My favourite swap I've seen was someone in Istanbul who went to the bazaar, took pictures of carpets and then offered to send someone a carpet from Turkey," said Michaels.

Google spokeswoman Debbie Frost said: "Gmail is proving to be a very popular addition to Google, but like all of our products we have to put it out there for a while to a select number of people to see how it goes. Don't worry - it will be expanded."

A Google employee told the Sunday Herald the company was "bowled over by the response to Gmail - the swap sites are utterly charming".

The other major e-mail providers - such as Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL - have allegedly been blocking invitations to Gmail that come through their systems by sending them into junk mail folders. Hotmail and Yahoo have raised their storage levels in response.

Google was criticised over Gmail's privacy policy last month when it confirmed it will scan each message in search of keywords to offer targeted advertising to subscribers.

jenifer.johnston@sundayherald.com www.google.com www.gmailswap.com