Google has announced an IPO. I’m not sure why. Invitations for their Gmail service are selling at Ebay for an average of $16. Perhaps instead of giving away Gmail they should have charged for it and foregone the IPO. Or at least they could consider giving out a GMail account with each share.
They have another experimental thing called Orkut that is, basically, a social networking tool and requires an invite from a member to join. No one is selling that. Seems a shame, could be a good business tool. But I’m not sure that’s how they intend it to be used.