Mom still won't switch – says she doesn't trust betas: It's been a while since invitation-only accounts on Google's free Gmail service were being sold on eBay for $60 a crack.
And with Google having regularly lowered the barriers to access in the nearly three years since launch (see "You may also be interested in our new service: Google Wake-up Call"), you could be excused for assuming Gmail has been freely open to all for a while now. In fact, the last vestiges of exclusivity were dropped only today, with invitations no longer required in the United States, Canada, Mexico and a swath of Asian and South American countries.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said the doors were opened because other key services like instant messaging and calendar management are now tied into Gmail. "The trick isn't getting more people to use the service. The trick is to get more people to use the service more effectively," Brin said. And it's a good thing he's not dead set on overtaking the market leaders. Despite attracting 60 million unique visitors in December by comScore figures (a 71 percent jump over the year before), Gmail is still looking toward the horizon at Yahoo mail (249 million unique visitors in that month) and Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail (236 million).
But even if you don't use Gmail, you still owe the Google guys a thank-you for the gig or two of storage you now enjoy on whatever mail service you use; at the time Gmail launched with its offer of 1GB (now close to 3GB) of space, Yahoo and MSN were providing each user with 10MB or less. Brin now sees a possible revenue stream in selling even more storage to industrial-strength users.
The specifics aren't set, but Brin said the fees would be similar to Google's photo service, which charges $25 annually for 6.25GB gigabytes and $500 a year for 250GB. "We can't afford to give away everything for free," Brin said.
<they can't?>
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Do you have a link Brinke? |
