You've got Gmail!

so glad i got back into the blogging thing recently 'cause it had been awhile, and i've had my blog account since ... 2000? In fact, I even became a BloggerPro user when it was first introduced in ...2001? 02? -- which adds a lot of features -- if you don't own a Mac (which I do). Doesn't matter though. I sent in my money for BloggerPro as a token of thanks for letting me have my free blogger accounts. I don't mind not being able to use those extra features.

But today, being a devoted Blogger user has paid off. When everyone I know was going to Movable Type, Typepad... I logged in to my Blogger home page and saw my invitation to be sign up for a beta account of Gmail. In Google's Gmail intro e-mail message they tell you, "You're one of the very first people to use Gmail" and go on to say how valuable your feedback is to them. The coveted gmail account, and I got it for loyalty to Blogger (and apparently, you can't open a new account to get the invitation, nor will you have gotten the invitation if you haven't blogged "in a while" they say). Pretty cool.

Besides, maybe they knew I quit my job and was about to go on another traveling spree, when I blog nearly daily. Heh heh. Do you know that at Google, they require you to spend 20% of your time (that is, one day out of the five weekly) to work on your OWN PERSONAL project, unrelated to your work there? That's how Gmail was born. Amazing company.

Don't know why so many people are up in arms about their computers scanning the lexicon on your screen to place targeted, yet unobtrusive text ads to the side of your email. Shit, your grocery discount card tells the grocery chain exactly what you eat, whether or not you buy tampons, TV dinners, and the kind of toilet paper you use. Your credit card companies have a record of every purchase you've ever made using their cards. In fact, the ads are interesting as far as ads go. Got a message about a friend's studio sale in Brooklyn and a couple of good ads -- only two mind you -- that had to do with Brooklyn guides (About Guide to Brooklyn as in about.com and Hello Brooklyn) came up which I thought would be RATHER USEFUL! In addition to that, there is a very clear link just below these that leads you to a page that EXPLAINS how everything is occurring through Google. They know WAY less about you than your grocery store or CVS store.