Filed under: Fun, Internet, Social Software, Beta

Download Squad's Invite-a-palooza: Day 1

Invites are all the rage at the moment, here on the internet. They're such the rage that rarely a day goes by without DownloadSquad bloggers getting a pleading email for an invite to the latest service. Sure, you could use services like InviteShare, which has just been bought by TechCrunch for $25,000, but we understand that folks don't want to be waiting for folks to trade with. So we sat down and thought, "How can we feed our readers addiction to the latest invite-only services?" and after some discussion, the Invite-a-palooza was born. Each day from today until we run out of services to invite folks to, we're going to offer our readers the chance to join the Web 2.0 fun, with some exclusive invites. We're always open to suggestions too, so if there's an invite-only beta site you'd like us to look into, simply drop us a note!

Day 1: Gleamd

Gleamd is for people, just as Flickr is for photos. With so many people online, Matthew McInerney decided that there really ought to be a way to find interesting people out on the net - and so Gleamd was born. The idea is simple - you vote for people you think are interesting, and then Gleamd will show people depending on their popularity - a Digg for people would, perhaps, be the easiest way to explain it.

I dropped the creator a line, to find out what inspired him to create the site: "The reason I created the site comes from my own frustration in trying to find really interesting people on the net, and while resources exists to find interesting news stories, pictures, or videos, I still haven't stumbled across a place to highlight people. Browsing through Facebook or Myspace really isn't a reasonable option, so I decided to create a place to solve the problem."

Gleamd has been growing quickly since its launch a mere two weeks ago, and has already attracted investment. We've been using Gleamd for a little while, and the continual improvements have made it yet easier to find interesting people on the net.

So how do you get in on Gleamd? It's simple. Leave us a comment here and be sure to activate it! We've got 50 100(!) invites for folks to get their hands on, so get commenting! Each person who nabs an invite for themselves also gets 5 invites to share the Gleamd love.

We're out of invites! If you're willing to share your 5 invites with another reader or 5, that would rock!