Can't quite remember exactly when I received my first Gmail invite...somtime in early 1994, I think. I was glad to finally get an account though, and I've always used it as my primary account. In fact I have two - one for work-related/resume purposes and one for personal use.

By the way, you guys ever saw their April Fool's joke this year?

Oops 1994!!

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brinthey first met as Stanford University graduate students in computer science in 1995. Then how come you get Gmail in 1994

GMail wa launched for public beta testing in April 1st, 2004.

Yeah i was happy when i recieved my gmail invite but not really that excitied. What i mean by that is i was happy to get a better mail service but thats all it did for me, its not like it handed a million dollars over to me. I dont know how happy someone could actually get over getting a new email service. Maybe because it was an invite only, but really you could search on GOOGLE for gmail invites and there were hundreds of people handing them out you could easily get one in a day or two.

It seems like as of right now though i dont think much about gmail anymore, the space is really the best thing about it. I dont see any really good features that stand out and make me like it more than the others. I use it for the space mostly, also it does have a really good spam filter i will give them that.

Extremely proud Coz I had something my dad didnt have Which is rare when it comes to internet. And because it's invite-only!

Big space and all but I find logging into my gmail takes a long time and the layout isn't as user friendly as I thought it was suppose to be. With yahoo and hotmail(yuck!) coming up with bigger space, I rather go for yahoo instead.

I guess you could say that I wasn't that excited. I wanted it at first because it was something I couldn't have (greedy, I know) but didn't know anyone who had it so I couldn't get excited. About two weeks later I go check it out again and they opened registration for it, so I finally got one, but it wasn't as special anymore.

Man when I heard Google was starting an email service, I immediately searched google and kept on searching till i found Gmail after several days. But it was only by invitation. So again I waited and waited till at last a friend somehow got an invite and sent me one. Ever since my world has not been the same. I never have to delete my mails again and I don't have to worry about spam . Gmail takes care of it. The ads have never bothered me. And when I discovered the pop3 functionality, it was the end of using my browser to check my mail. Gmail since then has continued to improve and grow in size and continues to be unbeatable. Perhaps the reason why a survey found people who use Gmail are younger , have better sex and are usually cooler.

I was glad, since I had a better interface and a decent spam filter.

I use both Gmail and Yahoo!, and honestly, I perfer Yahoo Mail over gmail. For you US users, gmail is the better option if you're looking for more storage and free POPing of your mail. But other then that, I don't see any advantages over Yahoo! Mail.
The Yahoo! Mail has a better look and feel to their interface, the google one is basic(reason is loads faster). You have folders in Yahoo Mail, Gmail uses Labels, which clutters your inbox.
I just find the Yahoo! Mail is more organized, better looking, and more user friendly regarding customization of colors, avatars, etc. I'm going to be a Yahoo! Mail user forever, and my gmail account is there for other reasons, but will never be my main one