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Google's new Web-based e-mail service, Gmail, will be free when it debuts. So why are people paying a hundred bucks for a Gmail account on eBay, and swapping things like a personal tour of Tokyo or several pounds of homemade fudge for an invitation to sign up?

Gmail is in its testing phase right now. You have to be invited to join by a Google employee, so accounts are at a premium. And some people just have to have an account NOW.

Reviewers have praised Gmail for its simple, clean interface; because it lets users store a vast number of e-mails; and because users can do a Google search on their old mail.

To facilitate the marketplace for Gmail, Sean Michaels of Ottawa, Canada has set up a Web service called Gmail Swap. Thousands of people are offering goods or services to the select few who've received Gmail invites.