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If your trade is cool enough, get Gmail early

By Mike Cassidy
Knight Ridder Newspapers

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Gmail. As in Google mail. As in Got-to-Get-it mail.

Everybody wants it. OK, not everybody, but those who do want it, want it really bad. How bad?

Bad enough to name their babies after you, if you can provide them with a Gmail account. Bad enough to set you up with their own girlfriends. Bad enough to write a song for you.

Has the world gone crazy? Well, yes, but you already knew that.

Never underestimate the value of a piece of scarce hipness. Gmail has become the modern-day Beanie Baby of the geek-erati. (OK, Beanie Baby. Not so hip, but you know what I mean.)

So far, Google has limited e-mail accounts to a relative few insiders, as a way of testing the service. Along with the account, the insiders get five invitations to give to friends who can then set up their own accounts.

"I really think that Gmail is the thing of the moment," says Sean Michaels, 22, who has become the expert on just what people will do for a Gmail account.

(He got his by simply asking for one on his Web log.)

Michaels, a recent college graduate living in Ottawa, launched gmailswap.com two weeks ago. It's a way, he says, for nice people to offer goods and services in exchange for a Gmail account.

"I've been totally flabbergasted," Michaels says.
 
Yes, the site has taken off. In the first week and a half, there were 18,000 postings.

It is on Michaels' site that you will see the lengths to which people say they will go to become somebodyhip@gmail.com.

"A rosary blessed by the Pope." "Two nights out in Belgium." "Your online girlfriend for a month."

Those hunting for accounts talk about the 1 gigabyte of storage and the cool features, but we know it's the cachet they want.

In trying to help, Michaels was not after fortune. The site is free. In fact, he was inspired by a good and decent friend who desperately wanted a Gmail account, but who was not in with the in-crowd.

Sure, accounts were available for cash on eBay, but that seemed so cheap, so dirty. "Here is someone who is original, creative, a really nice person and the only recourse he had to turn to was eBay," Michaels said.

Yes, another recourse would be to wait until Google releases the free e-mail service to the public, perhaps this summer. But by then, the early adopters say, the e-mail addresses they want (mikecassidy@gmail.com, for instance) will be taken.

Besides, where's the coolness in something anyone can get?

"It's a status symbol now, especially in my circle of friends," says Brian Glick, 24, a computer-science major in Canada.

Glick first offered a boxed set of Springsteen CDs, but nobody was biting.

"I guess I couldn't keep up with the offers of free sex and $60 from Paypal and that kind of stuff," he says.

So he said he'd send a birthday present to whoever would hook him up with Gmail.

"I actually had a response within a minute," Glick says. In fact, the invitations are still coming. He's got extras. "It feels like I wield a lot of power right now," he says. "My girlfriend is jealous about some other geek girls throwing themselves at me."

She needn't worry. His love is true. How do I know? You know those extra Gmail invitations Glick got?

The very first one, he gave to his girlfriend.

Mike Cassidy is a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News