Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Notice the problem here? Maybe it's just an error on the part of the author, but if they're comparing "unique visitors" of hotmail.com to the published number of users of the other services, that's an apples to oranges comparison.
Also making this survey a little useless is the fact that many people are like me: I have a hotmail account from the olden days, and several years ago, I set it to forward to my Google Apps account, and it's probably going to stay that way until Microsoft goes out of business. So I'm listed as a hotmail user, even though I rarely give it much attention, and use Google Mail as my everyday tool.
Nevertheless, it's a catchy headline, and a good example of a platform long tail. Even though hotmail's sexy days are a decade or more in the past, it remains relevant because it's sticky, and even trend chasers like me continue to "use" it because my old hotmail address is still out there and continues to get mail.
I can see the desire to avoid putting more info in Google's servers as a reason to avoid GMail, but in the end you are just trading one mega-corp for another, it's all the same. And Gmail just works too.
My previous experience with Yahoo (pre 2004) was much much worse. I haven't use Hotmail though, and as I seriously doubt Apple's technical skills when it comes to cloud services, I don't feel safe to put my @me.com address anywhere public.
My gmail spam label accumulates about 14K messages a month (mail labelled spam gets automatically dropped after 30 days. I can't possibly guess if there have ever been any false-positives) I have another filter that I set up with certain key words like "unsubscribe" or "opt-out" that seems about 98% accurate in catching spam that gmail would otherwise push to my inbox, and that accumulates about 400 messages a month. Still, after all that, I'd guess I get about 10 pieces of spam in my gmail inbox every day.
I have a very common firstname.lastname@gmail.com style address that I've had since April 1, 2004. I pretty liberally publish my gmail address (it's posted on my resume and on facebook, for example) but I tend to only give it to very trustworthy app/website developers for account purposes, with a first.last+identifier@gmail.com. Some of them still sell my address, despite claiming they won't. I never sign up for marketing or contests or anything of that sort, yet I'm still about ready to walk away from gmail due to the spam. I think my biggest culprit is other people with the same name who can't remember their own address; I know when someone else goes insurance shopping, car shopping, home shopping, etc, based on the random influx of mail.
However, the account at my domain gets almost none, even though I use it to sign up for everything. I'd honestly kind of forgotten that spam is a thing people worry about still.
I'd guess either the spammers figure @gmail.com addresses are more valuable, or they're performing some sort of dictionary attack against it which, of course, does not hit my domain.
Also, I assume you won't be counted, because comScore is probably not counting mail protocol connections, but rather actual website visits. A POP3 connection wouldn't count as a "unique visitor" in my book.
So the article's data is probably fine.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46245195/Strategy%20and%20governance...
Gmail is also probably growing, at least if we compare advertising growth rates. I don't actually have data for the mail services and I realize there will be discrepancies, but this is from a presentation some time ago for the above case that sort of visualizes advertising (mail) growth:
There's nothing wrong about wanting to live near other early adopters.
This whole conversation is disgusting. It's an email account. But since it's ubiquitous and mainstream, now it turns into this weird cultural thing where we have to make sure we have the right email account, lest we look like one of them.
Repeat after me: it's an email account. Not a reflection on your identity.
It's like when you visit a website and it's still using comic sans and looks like it was from the Geocities days, you form an impression. This is your brain do collaborative filtering. Same thing with email host.
Yes it's an email account, but they come in different flavors and some flavors are associated with the early adopter (cool kids) crowd (@gmail.com), and some are associated with their parents (@hotmail.com)
Unfortunately, the "cool kids" part gives you away. Like so many things in life, you win by opting not to play the [horribly broken] game.
Being secure in your identity means you don't have to partake in idiotic status signaling like this. Why? Because you just don't care about all the things you're told you should be doing in order to be 'relevant.' You're happy just to be you, and to do what you need to do. Culture still weighs on you, but it doesn't have to dictate your life. And you know what happens? Over time, people become more interested in you because of this. They may question you, but they may also envy you.
The path to discover one's true self is a lifelong journey, and I bid you good luck on it.
I am unsure of your intention here, but I think you are just not getting this at all. If you are assuming I am a cool kid then you are mistaken. I am a 42 year old software architect at a fortune 500 company.
I think you have this all backwards. Early adopters picked gmail (as did all their friends) not to signal, but because it was better, faster, more secure. Those that didn't and stuck with yahoo and hotmail (and who continue to have their accounts hacked) are perceived by others (no matter how secure they might be in themselves) as not keeping up.
Maybe an example will help, let's say you put your myspace account in your profile. You can be the most secure person on the planet, but people will look at your profile and a draw a conclusion.
"The path to discover one's true self is a lifelong journey, and I bid you good luck on it."
Haha - I think it's a bit of stretch to go from email host provider to some zen moment, but I guess you didn't really have any point to make, so resorting to condescension was the next best thing. :)
Now, let me get back to my Well account...
I use Gmail for email, the only thing my hotmail is used for is to sign into MSN.
update: per the article, i'm one of those who has an "active" hotmail account, which i haven't used for e-mail for several years. i check hotmail once in a blue moon for stuff like Games for Windows Live.
The red logo, a lot of blue over the right half of the screen and I could have sworn that the login was on the left hand side, that's how I remember it.
This is the hotmail that is basically, burned into my memory until my death: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/p/2006/1997-hotmail.jpg
Incoming mail or a simple ping to the mail server won't counted as a user view. With all the spam, fake mails, and mail bomb pings, views would then report bajillions of hits and nothing would expire.