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It's google's comptetitor to hotmail. Highlights: - 1 gig of space - threaded discussion - targetted advertising (more on that later) I just got one myself, specificly so I could rejoin looper's delight, rather than perusing the archives every once in a while, as I have been for the a long time. A gmail account is especially useful for this group, since the looper's delight archives are freely open for all search engines and spam bots, and since you can only post to the list from a subscribed address. Since everyone's addresses are in the archives, and open for all, spam is an inevitability. Since it's a mailing list, hotmail accounts quickly get filled unless you empty them frequently. The reason you are hearing about 'gmail invites' is a pretty crafty scheme on google's part: it's only via a limited number of invitations from current users. They've achieved a level of online 'cachet' far outstripping their actual usefulness - it's just a free email account after all - and this has also allowed them to scale the growth of the service to make sure that the infastructure to support it grows seamlessly. There's also a rather controversial feature built in to gmail accounts however: the targeted advertising. Google pays for the services by delivering targeted links (down the right side, a bit like their search engine does) by searches through your mail for keywords: a machine is looking over my shoulder as I write this and determining what ads to serve me based on what I write down. (They are all musical links, surprise surprise). Some people feel this is a dangerous breach of privacy; you need to make up your own mind. Personally, I've got no problem with a machine reading my looper's delight mailing list posts, especially considering that they are all posted to the internet and read by hundreds of machines as soon as they hit the archives. At least google isn't going to use it to spam me... So if you want one, let me know: I have a few invites available myself. bIz (back from the dead :>) ------------------------------------------------------- "Groovetronica's melodic, chill madness is perfect for everyone." - Editor's pick - music.download.com. More than three and a half thousand downloads makes us their #1 downloaded downtempo artist. Check out our website - http://www.groovetronica.com Hear tracks from the new EP and sign up to have us send you our next cd release - for free! ------------------------------------------------------- <a href="http://www.groovetronica.com>Electronica and Groove: Angst and Sex Music</a>