Hacker News Reader

And by the time they email me an say that I can download I'll have forgotten what this project was and what all the hype was about making me less likely to use it and even less likely to spread the news.

I agree. I can't preach something that I haven't experienced yet !

Exactly, why would I refer my friend to a product I haven't even tried yet? That's not how referral works at all, that's how spamming works.

We've got so many beta requests, we can't process them fast enough. So, just refer as many people as you can, and we'll bump you up somewhere in the "waiting list". Ingenious. ;-)