Hotmail was my first Email ID that I created about 14 years back. Back then, using email for communication itself was new and exciting. However, now email has become an integral part of one’s daily lives.
Hotmail was really hot back then and anyone and everyone on the internet sported hotmail email ID. Scenario has changed drastically in the last decade. After Hotmail came Yahoo and then youngest of all Gmail. However, as it stands today, Gmail is THE best web mail clients – thanks to their innovation every step of the way. I hardly see anyone using Hotmail IDs now!
Although, I still log-in to my hotmail account, it is probably once in a month or even lesser (and to gmail about 10 times a day!).
One of the main reasons why Hotmail has been a laggard, even though being the first and biggest of them all, is purely due to lack of innovation and failure to understand changing customer needs.
Last few years have seen only one trend – Google innovated and implemented, while others followed. That gave Gmail the edge and everyone wanted to be associated to them.
Now, probably after a decade, it is for the first time that Hotmail seems to done a “First” – which other 2 cannot boast of having:
Throw- Away Email Accounts or Alias Email Accounts!
It is surprising that neither Gmail nor Yahoo have got this feature as yet. Alias Email account essentially means that you can have single email ID, and create different aliases for that email. This makes creating a new email ID quick and easy.
Suppose in your college days you have created and email ID Iamarocker@xyz.com, but you cant use the same when you start working or share the email ID with your relatives. So you’d have needed to create a completely new email account with additional hassle of checking both the email IDs.
But with Hotmail’s Alias accounts, it becomes super easy. Just create an alias and share that. All your mails including Aliases, will fall in the same mail box. Each user can create up to five aliases, any of which can be deleted and replaced with another at any time. Over time, Microsoft will increase that limit to 15 aliases per account, making it so that the true heavy users won’t need to juggle between two or more Hotmail accounts.
This is also a great feature for people who do not want to share their real email ID – Just give your alias email ID and your original will always remain safe and annonymous !!
Kudos to Hotmail for being the first to launch this…what say guys ?