Google Makes Gmail Invitation-Free

Google's email service, Gmail, has been opened up to allow Internet users to sign up directly to the service, without being invited by another Gmail user.

The Gmail interface is available in over 40 languages — Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Serbian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, or Vietnamese among others — besides English. Also, Google has introduced more emoticons for the integrated instant messaging service.

Google had made Gmail an invitation only service, when it launched in UK in April 2004. Now, two months prior to its third birthday, Google seems prepared to take on more users, to compete with rivals Yahoo! mail and Hotmail. Representatives of Google say that they have decided to drop the invitation-only restriction because it is good for users. They now want to focus on the users' needs first. However, the email service will retain its beta status.

Gmail was recently renamed Google Mail in UK and Germany, when Google lost its trademark lawsuit in Europe.