Fortune

A new email app? Sounds like a snooze. But Mailbox, software for managing email on the go, is generating massive hype, with iPhone users signing up at a stunningly quick rate. To handle the influx of potential users, startup Orchestra employs a virtual line, allowing new users onto their servers in controlled bursts. Sign up for an account, and you're placed in a reservation queue. It may be a convenient process for the company, but it's also an excellent marketing ploy. Would-be users -- like the one who sent us the screen grab on the right -- reveal that that queue has reached epic proportions and have taken to social media to talk about the wait with a fervor normally reserved for hardware launches. "I'm number 299,901!" opined one.