G!

I guess everyone's talking about Gmail and I thought I'd sign up and give it a go when the invites came out a while ago. I've only given out my gmail address to a couple of people so I could road-test the service and, as an email service, it's just dandy. No complaints. It sends and receives emails just splendidly. I've just wasted a shitload of time spent my lunch hour surfing the web and came across this story after following a link from here which I found from a link I followed here. As an aside, if you follow any of these links and become interested in the whole Plain Layne thing (this was the first I'd heard of it and it's a gripping little saga unfolding), there's a nice little postscript to it here. I also found this excellent little site that allows you to read news stories (such as the one mentioned above) without having to register and hand over all your personal information (even though you make it all up, rendering the whole process useless anyway). I was amazed when I had read all I could read on the Plain Layne thing and thought I should maybe get back to work, that I had gone on that little interweb journey after clicking a link from a gmail letter I had sent to myself. I was actually writing, or drafting, a blog entry and I got interrupted and had to do something else. Rather than save it to disk, I emailed it to myself, giving myself the flexibility of coming back to it wherever I had internet access. I opened it and re-read it (it was one of those things that, looking back, I'm glad I didn't post; one of those 'oh, there's nothing to write about' complaints that I put down to it being winter and the fact that I've been feeling decidedly sub-par for a few weeks and therefore not really inspired to write much at all). I didn't actually finish that sentence, did I. I really should edit that. Anyway, I clicked on one of the links. So here, we come to the bit about how pretty freaking amazing those contextual links in gmail are. The link I followed was a 'related link' rather than a 'sponsored link' so because I was writing about the nature of blogging, I ended up at a blog which talked about the nature of blogging (only in a much more educated and informed viewpoint than my own - nothing like the mass of knowledge on the internet to make you feel completely stupid). Now, I know people have already experimented with sending loaded emails to their Gmail accounts to see what crazy kinds of ads show up but maybe this could be a new meme. My own little contribution to the interwebnetthingy. Send yourself an email to your Gmail account on a topic that interests you, check your Gmail, and see what interesting links pop up that extend your knowledge on that subject. It would be just like visiting Google and doing a search, only much more complicated and unnecessary! By the way, if I have any readers, and if those readers would like an invite to use Gmail. I have a few to give out (and I know I could probably get a few bucks for them on Ebay but I just can't be bothered... maybe I should send myself an email talking about selling Gmail invites on ebay and see what comes up)