It wasn't MARKETED to them ... it was release to people who signed up expressing interest. Now, perhaps Google could have found a better place to initially announce it than at their own conference full of developers and social media geeks... but let's face it: they don't want your average office worker trying to use this yet -- it's too freaking buggy, they'll get turned off.

Geeks and early adopters are the only people who Google could expect to stick with it in it's current state (or to at least try it again later).