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Microsoft Not Dropping Hotmail Name
EveryNickIsTaken writes "CNET News.com is reporting that despite planning for months to ditch the name 'Hotmail' for 'Windows Live Mail,' Microsoft will keep the Hotmail name, renaming the service 'Windows Live Hotmail.' Along with the slight name change, MS will be modifying the interface to look more like Outlook's GUI."
I've been using their Windows Live Mail Beta for several months, and while it's still not as good as Yahoo's mail beta, it's MUCH better than regular hotmail... which sucks.
That said, I find myself using Windows Live Mail Desktop more and more. The early betas were pretty bad, but now it's a fairly good, simple e-mail client. Good stuff for those who don't need Outlook.
I'm actually pretty surprised that the Yahoo mail beta doesn't get more press. It is, by FAR, the best web-based e-mail I've ever seen. Check out this review for screenshots.
I haven't used my Hotmail account in a long while, but the final straw of their ad-laden interface was the stupid "Today" tab. It was the first thing that showed up when you logged in. Why the hell would I be going to Hotmail unless it was to check my email? My Inbox is the first thing I should see, not the crappy "Today" tab that as far as I can tell is just there to get an extra ad impression.
Now I have gmail and it is all business, I log in and see my emails. No extra clicking and I don't even notice the ads.
I might take this opportunity to plug a blog I'm currently working on, trying to get Microsoft to manage their passport.net / hotmail / xbox live syncing / linking a little better.
(no, there's no ads on there)
I wouldn't say it's well written, nor would I say it's a major issue but it is an annoyance.
http://msnemailchange.blogspot.com/
To quickly summarise, Microsoft has a policy where if you have a passport.net account to log in to some of their services, you can't change your login / backend email if you opted to chose a hotmail account, quite the frustrating if you simply don't want to use hotmail anymore.
On top of that, those of us who own an Xbox 1 or Xbox 360 and use live can get frustrated that the live "gamertag" is permanently bound to a passport.net id which we may no longer want to use (be it avoiding people on MSN, sick of hotmail's email interface or simply want to use another email address)
To my knowledge several other Microsoft web "products" use these live id's / passports but how well they integrate with passport.net / liveid I don't know - I believe there's a myspace kind of clone and also Zune owners need a passport - however, don't quote me on that.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's more integration with Vista too, perhaps the messenger package installed as default, however that one is also speculation.
So just to finalize my comment, yes I realize it's my own fault using MS's products and well yeah it's not a real major issue but it's annoying and could be handled a lot better, if anyone has any information on this, specifically names within MS / Xbox divisions for me to question, I'd appreciate it.
and yes, I'm new to starting one of these ranty style pages so it's a mess, sorry all.
- Scott
" By adopting the name 'Windows Live Hotmail,' we believe we're bringing together the best of both worlds--new and old "
What ever happened to just updating software. Is microsoft claiming that windows live hotmail whatever is going to be so 'new and improved' it's actually a different software product? Here's an idea, don't change the name - don't confuse people - just update the damned thing.
As an end-user, there is absolutely no difference in functionality between Windows version 1 and Windows XP. XP windows didn't *do more*, it just *had more*. It still shows you neat little pictures, and you click on them, and software runs and then crashes and then so does your computer.
Windows live hotmail extra 2-in-the-pink-1-in-the-stink beta alpha theta radiation flux capacitor is no different. It's a messenger client. If it's so different, why the hell do hotmail users want to use it?
Microsoft's days really are numbered.
---
two in the pink
Ace
It just... flows... Kudos to the naming department.
Changing the name to SpamMail probably would have been a bad idea.
Once upon a time, Microsoft went slap happy with the Back-Office moniker. They hurridly affixed it to many a disparate product for reasons unknown.
.net moniker. They hurridly affixed it over stale back-office stickers and even on products that had been lucky enough to avoid the officially orificially excrementitious sounding branding the last time around.
.net doesn't mean anything. Bill himself saw this to be true and hurridly, desperately affixed 'live' to many a disparate product. The rest he called 'vista'.
Days past, PR staff churned and version numbers changed in format, length and value.
Eventually, Microsoft realized that back-office sounds like back-orifice. So, they went slap super happy with the
Days past, PR staff churned and version numbers changed in format, length and value.
The most brilliant of the Microsoft Marketeers realized that
Days past, PR staff churned and version numbers changed in format, length and value...
I would like to take this opportunity to announce that I will not be changing my name either, but I may be changing my appearance to resemble people with popular names.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Would you believe Windows Undead Tepidmail?
KFG
I'm certain that Hotmails lack of 'forwarding' and export of contacts has prevented about half of their members switching to Gmail/other.
What you can do is this: Send an e-mail to everyone in your parents e-mail list from their Hotmail account telling them you're switching to Gmail & CC the Gmail account. Then, from the Gmail account 'reply to all' saying "this is my new account, please delete any others you have for me, I will only be using this from now on". All your contacts will automatically be added to Gmail contacts with the outgoing mail.
You'll need to check their hotmail once every couple of weeks to catch the stray's, but will mostly get there. Oh, and put a shortcut on the desktop to the gmail account, cos parents are really good at typing in the URL for hotmail as habit long after they've switched. Has worked for me a couple of times.
Actually, this legacy user stopped going to the page itself because I could see my Inbox from my MSN Messenger account and I never got anything but spam - and after 15 days they promptly deleted all my messages. 10 years of archived emails, LOST. FOREVER.
Of course I didn't go back, because I was seriously getting about 4 times as much spam in my inbox as the "spam box" - and believe me, I did thousands of messages worth of "training" Hotmail. I just don't think they care about filtering spam. Now I use gmail, and I get about 1 spam a day sneaking in (usually with no actual advertising content), which is a 99% success rate, with only 2 false positives in the entire history of my email account.
I don't see why anyone would use Hotmail over Gmail, period.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
It's like the entire design philosophy behind Hotmail has made a 180 degree turn since the Microsoft acquisition.
Windows NT was originally sold on the basis that it would offer all applications developers and users the opportunity to develop and use applications that all have the same standard user interface everywhere, and thus UNIX was legacy.
Windows XP was sold on on the basis that all applications developers could customise the look of their applications with "skins".
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
This was obviously brought to you by the same people who gave us seven versions of Vista with names that are made up of at least four words. Ballmer (a marketing guy) and his marketing demons wanted to tie into their new Windows Live brand, but they didn't want to lose the brand value of Hotmail, so they just grafted them together with no thought given to aesthetic or marketability. Windows Live Hotmail? It looks and sounds stupid.
"Hey, guys, I'm using Windows Live Hotmail in Windows Internet Explorer on Windows Vista Home Premium Edition! REVEL IN THE BRANDING!"
"Sufferin' succotash."