Gmail is spreading through my peergroup like a virus. Two days ago Patient Zero was given three free invitations to give out. Within a day each of those people got three invitations and now they have started infecting others.
What this shows me is that Google has succeeded on two major fronts. Here’s how it works:
- Success
- Be a credible company that people don’t hate. (“Don’t Be Evil.”)
- Build a better mousetrap.
Everyone is grabbing up Gmail because it’s a great product coming from a company they like/trust/don’t hate. Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail have stagnated, filled their interfaces with ugly ads, suffered from feature bloat, and reduced their free versions to the lowest tolerable functions. Who knew that providing good service was the secret to success?
[Oh, and yes I’m using Gmail now, too, but all my mail is going to both addresses, so just keep using my old one. I think I still prefer a good mail client to webmail when I’m at home, so for now at least I’m just going to be using Gmail at work.]