A statistically improbable polymath's views on politics and culture.

 
or rather, I've gotten an invitation from the fine folks at Blogger to try G-Mail. I already have two e-mail accounts, thanks--but here's the text of the advertisement (how many people are blogging on this advertisement? So many.):

As an active Blogger user, we would like to invite you to be one of the first to try out Google's new email service, Gmail.

Would you like to give it a whirl? YES / NO [hyperlinked for both options--M.C.]

So why are they inviting bloggers first? Three possibilities come to mind:
1. It's easier to reach the Blogger users, because they all go to the Blogger homepage on a regular basis
2. Bloggers like to talk about stuff, therefore they will start talking about their use of Gmail on their blogs--free advertising!
3. Bloggers probably know more about computers than the average person out there, so they'll help us work out the kinks.

For Option 1, can't they just post it up on their own website? Who doesn't go to Google all the time? Option 2 also sounds spurious--they're Google, they don't need free advertising. Option 3 is the most likely seeming possibility--they've selected a fairly websavvy portion of the population to use as guinea pigs for the ultimate beta test of Gmail.

This is all sheer guesswork. If anyone out there has better, more concrete information, please tell me.
posted by Maureen at 10:52 PM