Slashdot Mirror
Gmail Addresses For Sale
challahc writes "For the low, low price of $199, you too can be one of the lucky testers of Googles new Gmail service. Just Ebay It! This CNet News story has the details." Bill Walsh adds "The account for hackers@gmail.com is asking 200 dollars! Is it a good idea to buy anything that's in beta? Couldn't Google just wipe out all of the beta accounts when the service starts up?"
the news is always so fresh
hackers@hotmail.com is now for sale! asking only 400 USD. Goes to highest bidder!
Investing forum
there's a sucker born every minute. gmail sounds pretty neat, however i'm willing to wait for the public opening. some people i'd see spending $200 for one of these accounts... yahoo/netscape/microsoft employees associated with their respective free mail... if they get in and see what it looks like, they can get ready to add countering features to their sites faster.
Pay a crap load of money for a beta account for a service that will be free sooner or later anyway. What are you gaining from getting this beta account? Bragging rights? Thats a hefty price for bragging rights.
there are currently over 190 Gmail invitations for sale on ebay. Link[ebay.com]
-- the only good thing the French ever did was two chicks at one time
Couldn't Google just wipe out all of the beta accounts when the service starts up?"
Um... yeah.... that's why they are selling it NOW, hello.
There's like 4 pages of this stuffs. hackers@gmail.com is already at $200
I can imagine that there will be a rush of registration when it goes out of beta. Unless the beta testers have already taken all the "cool" addresses, and only the "hotstudabc666" ones are left...
Clever signature text goes here.
This is pathetic... I like google just as much as the next guy, but at the end of the day it's just e-mail. Before I'd fork over $200 for an e-mail address I'd register my own domain and create a tricked out one of my own.
But then again, if people really do pay that much money for a damn name, then there's not much one can do about it. It just sounds kind of stupid to me.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
NEWSFLASH: CNN does not stand for "C|Net News"!
gmail is brilliant. i have an account (free, thank you) and the advertisement are off to the side and are as easy to ignore as the google ads on millions of other web pages.
hackers@gmail.com: It was $200, then a story about it was posted on Slashdot, and it is now $800.
... google had its own slashdot section?
a world in progress...
Like: No spam. Not a single freaking message. Either they have an excellent filter or I haven't spread it around enough. Let's try an experiment: sclifford@gmail.com. Guess that'll be a good test of their spam filter. Cringe.
Anyway, the interface is uncluttered - just the gmail logo and a "star" flag for important messages. Everything else is hyperlinks or dropdowns. It's simple and fast.
But as a web application developer, I'm underwhelmed so far.
I think a simple icons-w/text-based GUI is easier to work with and not terribly bandwidth intensive. Anyway, there's no way to import my contacts yet, or my address book, or a PST file (or other mail format), or import mail from another service (that's stretching).
Anyway, while I think it's crass to sell your gmail account (and probably isn't kosher), doubly so for those who buy one. It's free, people - get a blogger account and make your own. Caveat emptor - it ain't worth $199.
I see all of the posts about "why would anyone pay for a free email account?", etc. I got mine about 5 minutes after that CNET story first hit on Friday. I immediately went to Ebay and searched for "gmail." After several screen refreshes, a "Buy It Now" listing for $19.99 popped up. I snapped it up immediately. Why? Even though my name is not that common, someone already has it registered on Hotmail and Yahoo. So I have to add numbers, etc., to my name and I have never liked that. It was worth $20 for me to get my own name at Gmail.com. The question about couldn't Google wipe out the Gmail accounts when it's out of beta is ridiculous. The first people they gave Gmail accounts to were Google employees and "friends of the company." Why would they piss those people off by canceling the beta accounts and making them then compete for usernames with the rest of the unwashed masses? They could, but they won't. Finally, if you have used Gmail, it is a damn good email service. There are few tweaks they need to make - the contacts management functions lags far behind Yahoo and Hotmail, for example, and, to my knowledge, there is no way to have desktop email alerts such as you get with Yahoo Messenger or Microsoft IM - but there is no question that they will fix these. Flame on, but I think that Gmail will ultimately surpass Yahoo and Hotmail for web-based email.
well, atleast they give you free shipping...
I made one post, logged in to make a second and was offered an account. It can't have anything to do with post rate.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I've gotten not one but two messages to my Blogger-acquired Gmail account claiming to be astoundingly well-spoken, prodigy, under-15 "kids" who also claim to be starting web businesses. One of them says he's starting a web hosting business, and says he would be "honored" to have a Gmail account.
I'm not kidding!
Why the hell is everyone so hyped up to get one? Are these people who honestly want a cool web mail service earlt? Is it a status symbol? Are these people mostly spammers trying to get accounts in order to run experiments on their filters, so as to better be able to defeat them later? Are they spammers trying to get as many accounts as possible so they can automate the process of marking spam as not-junk to try to break Google's distributed Bayesian filter system?
Seems to be a regular at Slashdot, posting something about e-bay and some *interesting* item being sold. Could this be the way /. is funding itself? I can see it now...
Editor 1: "We seem to be running low on funds, quick, point at something!"
Editor 2: *points at old mac in corner*
Editor 1: "Quick, put it up on e-bay, we'll run a story on vintage macs on e-bay!"
Editor 2: *Violently laughs, coughing up blood*
Editor 1: "Oooo, does e-bay have a policy on bodily fluids, I can feel another story coming on..."
Weren't all "active" blogger users invited into the beta? Something tells me the odds that maybe one or two employees from Yah, AOL (nescape, who?), or MSFT just might have slipped through the cracks that way.
I have been testing Gmail for a while now. There are still quite a few bugs and issues that need to be resolved. But the single most important reason to get gmail account is their spam filters. I use spamassassin+thunderbird junk control for my spam filter. But gmail leaves the combo in dust.
Btw, this is the response from Google to EBay sales:
-----
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 16:25:07 -0700
From: "Gmail Team" Add to Address Book
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [#9562759] GMAIL on Ebay !
Hello xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Thank you for your interest in Gmail.
Unfortunately, the popularity of Gmail has led some people to try and profit from selling invites to sign up for a Gmail account. Google is in no way associated with and does not approve of people auctioning or selling Gmail invitations. Consequently, Google cannot validate the authenticity of any Gmail invitations except those distributed via official channels.
If you purchased a Gmail account invitation through an online auction site, such as eBay, we suggest filing a complaint against the seller with the site's user protection services. We look forward to announcing a wider release of Gmail in the future, and do not encourage those interested
in Gmail to purchase an account through an online auction.
Sincerely,
The Gmail Team
I'd love to have abuse@gmail.com
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
@gmail.com - $50
hackers@gmail.com - $200
CowboyNeal@gmail.com - priceless
There are some things money just can't buy... For everything else, there's eBay.
I can't remember - is Google good or bad today?
Slashdot needs one of those weather maps with all the love/hate relationships with companies...
"Slightly heated discussion will take place today about the Google IPO, SCO still firmly in the outhouse, and there's a 30% chance that IBM will be favored with positive comments..."
-Adam
Someone whos brother works for google sent me an invite. I've had a chance to play around with it, and to be honest, I think it will be a big hit. For an online pop account, it's set up in a very nice way. Instead of the default normal inbox (new messages coming in are placed above the older ones, good has only the names of the people you have received messages from, and then all additional messages to and from that same person are put under their own thread, wityh an easy to use feature for archiving threads. It also says if the mail was sent from someone else to you, or sent from you to someone else. Theres a lot of other features, such as staring someone, but havent quite gotten that far yet. And yes, you get 1GB of storage. All in all, affter using the interface, I dont think I will go back to using other free email accounts.
That may not work -- few people have noticed it yet, but Gmail doesn't let you send or receive Windows executable attachments, according to them not even whe zipped!
- John Harris