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by Sruthi Krishnan

On April 1 2004, many thought it was a prank – the public launch of an email service with 1 GB of free storage. Once convinced that it was the real deal, there began a feverish search for an invite to an exclusive club. It was the internet’s stratosphere and those who belonged had an exclusive address – yourname@gmail.com.

On the eve of Gmail’s fifth anniversary, Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm, a digital marketing firm, recalls what it felt like in April ’04, when he was one of the lucky few to receive a Gmail invite.

“The 1 GB of storage then was mind-bending. It was more than I could ever imagine – and more than I thought I could ever use. Today I have over 7 GB on my Gmail account – and I want more,” says Mr. Murthy.

Compared to the competition, 1 GB storage was unheard of.

“We take it for granted now, but for perspective, Hotmail and Yahoo, I think, offered something between 2 and 10 MB,” recalls Venkat Inumella, vice-president, product development, at a start-up firm in Bangalore, who received his Gmail invite in May ’04.

Invite system

The system of allowing users only by invitation was Google’s way of keeping a tab on the number of users on board. “The invite system was a master act in viral marketing. If you were in your early twenties and had a Gmail invite, you commanded immediate respect among your geek friends,” he adds.

With demand far exceeding supply, the marketplace went nuts.

“Sold like hotcakes”

“Invites sold like hotcakes on eBay and on a lot of forums that sprung up all over the place, some people trading them for as much as a few hundred dollars! It was fun tracking the going price daily as it crashed in a matter of days, as the invites multiplied,” recalls Mr. Inumella. “Some script kiddies wrote these ‘Gmail invite generators’ and tried to ‘guess’ valid invites. The odds of guessing a random 30-character sequence correctly are like one in a bazillion gazillion or something. That didn’t stop people from trying!”

In some cases, the Gods came to the rescue. Jai Iyer, product strategy head at a stealth-mode start-up, remembers his friend who was desperately seeking a Gmail id.

“He found this site where Gmail invites were being auctioned or bartered away. Someone on that site agreed to give my friend an id in return for a ‘mystic Indian sanskrit chant.’”

Minutes later, the proud owner of a Gmail account, his friend typed out “Shuklam baradharam Vishnum” in an email.