Gmail invitations auctioned on eBay

A search for Gmail on eBay shows there are currently 47 auctions selling free e-mail accounts for Google’s new mail service currently in beta testing. News.com reports $61 bids on some of these listings.

Nelson Minar was kind enough to hook me up with a Gmail account a few weeks ago, but I have not been a heavy user. I have two invitations available, probably the same for these eBay users. There is nothing in the Gmail terms of use or Gmail program policies against selling these invitations.

If this practice bothers you, the only e-mail address listed for feedback is privacymatters@google.com.

[Update 6/9: Please do not e-mail me asking for Gmail invites. If I do not know you, and you came in off of a search engine, I do not plan on giving any out.]

More on aggregators and feed distribution

Dave Winer writes more and invites more comments regarding the issues raised in the Wired article.

I have had some ideas regarding more community sharing of news feed resources. How can aggregator developers better publish their users subscriptions and activities? Would the end user be willing to have their data published? Share Your OPML is a start. What if aggregators had Share Your OPML functionality built-in? Locally stored and placed online as well. Most users have some online space available, either through their ISP, personal site, MSN, .Mac, etc.

You have the dateModified field defined in the head. Expand the outline element to include a dateModified for the element. There is then a distributed format available to determine who has the latest goods. A trusted server would then need to connect the ownerName and ownerEmail to its client machine and aggregator, check for availability, and serve the location of the seed.

Too complex? Other ideas?

Wired News: Will RSS Readers Clog the Web?

Ryan Singel of Wired News wonders if RSS readers will clog Web servers.

The solution is HTTP status code 304 Not Modified. See section 10.3.5 of the HTTP 1.1 specification for more details.

“If a cache uses a received 304 response to update a cache entry, the cache MUST update the entry to reflect any new field values given in the response.” Date is a new field value. If no date found (clockless origin server) you use client date.

Google files for initial public offering

Google filed with the SEC today for an initial public offering. Some quotes from the Letter from the Founders, apparently written by Larry Page: “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” “We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google.” “As a public company, we believe a dual class voting structure will enable us to retain many of the positive aspects of being private.” “We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge, doctors and washing machines. We are careful to consider the long term advantages to the company of these benefits. Expect us to add benefits rather than pare them down over time. We believe it is easy to be penny wise and pound foolish with respect to benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity.”