GMail, Breeding Kindness and Profits?

In the almost surreal fervor by Outsiders to obtain early access to the GMail system from the Insiders, a new distribution tactic has floated to the surface: kindness. In an attempt to deflate the monetary value of GMail access, Jonas Luster has launched a new "contest", of sorts.

In this altruistic version, the Outsiders buy their entrance with semi-random acts of kindness. As the site describes:

49 invites given away
9 invites open
$3234 in charitable donations
$5500 pledged without invite in our name
19 individuals went and offered their own invites
26 individuals will be doing good

It's not free, however. If you're interested in one, comment here and let me know what you're willing to do for it. Not to me (though I am more than ready to trade for a few good massages), but to someone else. A random act of kindness, maybe? Work in a soup kitchen? Help out at a needle exchange? Or maybe you're doing that already - you'd be the ideal recipient.

Source: Jonas Luster, 'We've gots em, the shiny, the precious ("Do some good")'

On the other end of the spectrum, an enterprising young 15 year old is making thousands already:

It's one of those Internet schemes, reminiscent of the dot-com boom, where money is generated seemingly from nothing: Pierce buys e-mail accounts and sells them on eBay, a business he has so far managed mostly during his lunch hour, between exams and after school.

He has Google to thank: An upcoming free e-mail service from the popular search engine has people so eager to get an account before all the catchy e-mail account names are swept up that they're willing to pay for one of the relatively few test accounts available today. Pierce's biggest customer so far paid $102.50 for an account.

Pierce is merely the middleman. When a friend bragged about having a "Gmail" account a few weeks ago, Pierce hadn't heard of Google's e-mail service. Then he checked eBay and discovered a booming business.

Though most auctions were offering accounts individually, one seller was selling multiple accounts, for a little under $30 apiece. Pierce snapped up the accounts and resold them on the auction site, in auctions that generally closed at around $60 each.

Source: HonoluluAdvertiser.com, "Selling 'Gmail' pays off for teen"

Hard to believe there's more revenue generated outside of the GMail system than directly from it.