February 15, 2007 9:31AM  |
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Gmail was invitation-only when it launched in April 2004, when Google had hoped to spread the word about Gmail through a viral-marketing strategy where users would invite each other to participate. And now, in opening up Gmail, Google has again decided to go viral by using YouTube to spread the Gmail love.
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 Google has changed the policy for its Gmail, the company’s e-mail service, opening signups to everyone rather than having accounts determined by user invitation.In the past, those who wanted a Gmail account would have to be invited by someone who already had Gmail. When it created that plan, Google did say that it would eventually drop the invite-only restriction. Also part of Gmail is a chat function, and the e-mail service is available in over 40 interface languages. The company’s cofounder, Sergey Brin, has noted in news reports that Gmail has become a cornerstone for Google, and making it more widely available is important for the company.
In making Gmail invitation-only when it launched in April 2004, Google had hoped to spread the word about the service through viral marketing and build buzz about Gmail before opening it to the general public. In making Gmail more widely accessible, it has again decided to go viral by using YouTube to spread the word. The company has created several videos that are now on the YouTube site, featuring Google engineers and puppet shows with characters created out of office supplies. The benefits of Gmail — such as “Gmail blocks spam before it even gets to your inbox” — are written in marker on large sheets of paper, giving the presentations a homespun feel. User comments to the “Gmail Theater” series praise the quirky videos for their “geeky goodness” and creativity. In another twist of lightheartedness, the company has stuck to its holiday theme for announcements. Gmail was unveiled on April Fool’s Day, sparking speculation that it was a joke, and the company chose Valentine’s Day for the public rollout, so all users could “share the love.”
Since its initial launch, Gmail has been tweaked in several ways, primarily to make the service less susceptible to spam and able to integrate with instant messaging more effectively. Google took some heat during Gmail’s early days for creating contextual advertising in which ads were served up on the basis of what was contained in user messages. Although the company insisted that the process was automated, and that employees were not reading e-mail to tie messages to ad content, Google refined the feature anyway to make it less intrusive. IDC analyst Sue Feldman pointed out that, although Gmail has considerably fewer users than rival services, Google is not exactly hurting for business. “They’re making lots of money, and people tend to lose sight of that,” she noted. “As you get larger and into more areas, like e-mail, there’s always a chance of getting scattered. But that doesn’t seem to be happening to Google; they’re doing extraordinarily well.” |
