Archive for February, 2005

Okay, I don’t have a gmail account. I was offered an invitation a while back but I turned it down (how many email addresses can I keep track of?). But I’m fascinated at the way Google has handled the roll-out of this product.

In case you don’t know offhand how this works, Gmail is Google’s email service. They offer a huge storage amount, and offer it for free. (There was some controversy when the service was first announced based on the fact that Google serves up text ads based on words within the mail received at your gmail account.)

Since the product is officially in "beta," you can’t just go up to the Google site and sign up. The only way to sign up for an account is to be "invited" by someone who already has an account.

This is viral marketing at its best. By artificially limiting the number of account holders (I say artificial because nobody believes that this system is actually a "beta" program), and requiring you to finagle an invitation from an account-holder, Google has created a sense of exclusivity around its email offering that far exceeds the actual value. (Okay, maybe it’s a really really good email account … but it’s still just an email account. To say that email is a commodity is to understate by a wide margin … it’s a commodity that’s free.)

Now it’s not uncommon to see bloggers announcing that they have X number of Gmail invites to give away. (It’s becoming more common now as you can tell that Google is releasing more and more invites.) At the end of the day, Google will have far more Gmail account holders than they might otherwise have had — because, after all, it’s just another email service, right? (In fact, he said facetiously, it’s an email service that reads your email and offers contextual ads based on what people are writing you about).

Brilliant, just brilliant.

Makes me wonder: what lesson is there for an association in this type of marketing campaign? Could you imagine limiting membership (if not membership in your actual association, then membership in a sub-group of some sort, or a subscription) just to people who are able to get an invitation from someone who’s already a member/subscriber? Giving member/subscribers a limited number of invitations they can offer to others?

Hmm … yes, it does make me wonder …/div>

(EDIT, 07/06/2005: Well, what do you know. I have a gmail account now.)