In 2004, Google released its awesome mail Client: Gmail. OF course, Google made it invitation only, so thousands of users flocked to sites where they could receive an invite. Many even offered to pay people upwards of $200 for an invite to use Gmail, among other things. It was incredible, back in the day. Wouldn’t surprise me if a few souls were traded in the process.

Of course, being a young dashing eSheep, I wanted one too! Of course, I got directed to the back of the Gmail invite line. But, then I looked at a blog where someone was saying how they got a Gmail account on account of being a journalist for a blog, and I got an idea.

See, at the time I wrote for a website under a different name that was based on political opinions, but we could occasionally let a tech article slip by. Having written about Gmail before, I decided to email Google saying that I was a writer for this website, and I wanted to check out their email program, and in exchange, I would write a review for them.

A few days later, I got an invitation from Google’s PR department to use Gmail! It was probably the best thing that has ever happened to me in my time as a blogger/writer. Something that people were desperate to buy had been given to me by the Google Gods in exchange for 300 words.

So I wrote the article, emailed Google and told them thanks again. But now it brings an odd question up: Was I ethical in doing that? If I write a review for a service in exchange for a chance to use it, is it a violation of a blogger’s ethics? With sites like PayPerPost, where bloggers can be paid to review a service (Provided they state that they were paid to do so,) I wonder if what I did was OK.

I personally believe that I am offering a service to sites like Gmail when I do this. It’s a small sacrifice on both sides: They give me an account, I write a blog entry about it. They get a little publicity, and I get the chance to do an interesting program.

When the next big thing comes out, I’ll be sure to try to do it again. Whether you will or not is completely up to you. Also, I would like a little briefing on the ethics on doing this? Got an opinion? Hit the comments.