On April 1st Google officially began beta testing Gmail, and it was some time during that week that I filled out their “Keep Me Posted” form. I waited and waited and heard nothing. Then, in May, an old friend offered me an invite. I was so impressed with the service that I began using it for all my email. It wasn’t long till I had gmail invites to offer, and gave them out to anyone who wanted them. On the 2nd of February though, something odd happened, my number of invites (…and Ray’s too apparently) jumped from 5 to 50. At this point I’ve long since forgotten about my request for gmail invites, but this morning on my work email address, I got this email:

Hi there,

Thanks for signing up to be updated on the latest Gmail happenings. We hope it’s been worth the wait, because we’re excited to finally offer you an invitation to open a free Gmail account! Just click on this link to create your new account:

http://gmail.google.com/(CENSORED) 🙂

Since last April, we’ve been working hard to create the best email service possible. It already comes with 1,000 megabytes of free storage, powerful Google search technology to find any message you want instantly, and a new way of organizing email that saves you time and helps you make sense of all the information in your inbox.

And here are just some of the things that we’ve added in the last few months:

– Free POP access: Take your messages with you. Download them, read them offline, access them using Outlook, your Blackberry or any other device that supports POP

– Gmail Notifier: Get new mail notifications and see the messages and their senders without having to open a browser

– Better contacts management: Import your contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Outlook, and others to Gmail in just a few clicks. Add phone numbers, notes and more. Even use search to keep better track of it all.

We also wanted to thank you. For showing us your support and for being so patient. And to those who have already signed up for Gmail, thank you for giving it a try and for helping us make it better. Our users are what have made this product great. So whether you’re just signing up for your account or you’ve been with us since the beginning, keep letting us know how we can build you the best email service around.

That’s it for now. We hope you like Gmail and will share it with your friends. We’ve got lots of cool new stuff planned and we can’t wait for you to see our work in your Gmail accounts! Stay tuned…

Thanks,
The Gmail Team

So with Google finally offering gmail directly to those outside of the “Social Network” and giving it’s users invites like they were gumballs, I wonder how long it will be till this thing goes public? In the mean time, if anybody wants a gmail gumball, I’ve got plenty.