entitled to a point of view - but it is nothing more than viral
marketing - Google getting saps to push their product to others - get
them to talk about Google.

Traditional viral marketing involves giving the marketer a kickback.  Remember the Paypal and C2it viral marketing blitzkrieg?  Especially in certain corners of the 'net, people got very desperate to get anyone to sign in below them for the $5 or $10 kickback.  Or similarly the paid-to-view-ads and free-large-item programmes where to get anything good from them one NEEDS referrals.

 

AFAICT, giving away Gmail does nothing except good karma for you.

 

It's an oddity in that it's a service of fairly general interest-- most people can take advantadge of a free webmail service, or a shinier one than they have now.

 

It's something a lot of people want, and we get nothing for promoting it.  How is "Free Gmail" any different than posting "free old hardware" or "free books"?