Gmail, perpetual Beta?

When Gmail first came out, it was invite only and the invites which one would receive would be given out apparently based on usage of the system. Meaning if you used Gmail more (send/receive) then you would be more likely to get more invites to hand out. Then Google went public and nearly immediately after that, as if their cash infusion allowed them to dedicate more time/staff/servers to Gmail, they pumped out a bunch of new invites to people which would presumably make the system grow that much more.

They have slowly added features over time and made it that much better to use (it now will forward to external accounts, allow POP3 checking, and various filters on incoming mail) - and very recently (a few weeks) everyone with an existing account got 50 new invites to hand out to people when previously they would get something around 5 invites to give out at a time.

This appears to indicate that Gmail has reached an interesting point. A point where it can handle many more new users if they are allowing that many more to be invited in. But also a point where it may have already reached the point where everyone that wants a Gmail account... already has one. If that is the case, then it seems reasonable to open the system to the public. But perhaps the invite only type system allows Gmail some level of class and distinction since you have to theoretically know someone in order to get in.
(that said, there are services like isnoop which will give out the invites to anyone - also you can donate your invites to that - they currently have a ton of them)

There are theories that Gmail was staying in the invite only stage because it was beta, others think that it is to keep that "members only" feeling to it (even if essentially anyone could get in), and others think that this system allows them to track down how miscreants get in - hopefully reducing the amount of spamming that goes on.

So far, I have definitely seen spam come from at least one Gmail account - and what is interesting is that I have seen both Hotmail and Yahoo treat Gmail like spam automatically. I am curious if that is purposeful or merely an amusing side effect.

But all of this raises an interesting question as to whether Gmail will remain in Beta forever, or if it will ever become a final product? Generally "Beta" status lets people be aware that a product might have some bugs in it, therefore the system can get away with not being perfect.
Perhaps never taking your system out of Beta status allows you an infinite period of getting away with small glitches that a final release would no longer afford?

Regardless of any meaning in the Beta, I quite enjoy Gmail and I currently have 50 invites if anyone out there still doesn't have an account, but wants one.

Posted by Eric at February 21, 2005 10:29 AM | TrackBack