Qn: If your product lacks technical depth, what will you do?
- Invest more in technology (i.e. hire more developers)
- Call up marketing, hire dickheads and get something out.
Well, Microsoft is going ahead with the latter option. Instead of improving it’s live email client, Microsoft is instead offering tons of whacky email addresses to attract the Indian netizens.
Yes, you can get all stupid email domain names that you want, for e.g. your name@iliveingoa.in, bangalorerocks.in,sadadilibindaas.mobi, clubsushmita.com, iamcrazy.in, slipperysadhu.in, mogambokhushhua.com etc.. [visit coolhotmail.com and get your preferred email id]
Quick look at email usage in India:
- Yahoo is the number one email service in India, Gmail follows closely
- Google leads the pack of `most preferred websites
- As far as brand popularity is concerned, Microsoft stands at the 6th position (after Y!, Google, Rediff, Orkut and Gmail) (source)
It’s a no brainer that Microsoft is losing out to Google/Yahoo and even Rediff; and coolhotmail.com is a desperate attempt to get a big chunk of users to use the live hotmail client.
To a certain extent, this idea is innovative as your email id does reflects your personality (ah! MS thinks so) and it’s really fun to have a funky id, but I don’t think I will switch from Gmail to drunkfunk.in, unless Microsoft improves it’s core product.
I am sure many of us will instantly go ahead and get their name@gillidandagang.com kinda email ids, but we will stop checking these accounts after a while.
What about you? These domain names looks like a chat handle name..right?
tags: coolhotmail.com
I completely agree. Most people don’t want an email that suits their personalities. Thats what clothes are for.
People will usually have 2 email IDs, viz., 1 for work related stuff and the other for more personal stuff.
And as you rightly pointed out, the jobless ones who will actually go and register a sorry-excuse-of-an-email-address from coolhotmail, will end up not using it as soon as they realise how conviniently used-to they were to their older email accounts.
I am amazed how people who make up these decisions get away with it. There should be a fan club of the guys who came up with this idea
.
This is the MOST stupid idea that I have come across. Except the domain registar which I am sure will have made huge amount of money, I don’t think how will this benefit anybody else.
MS needs to reboot!
hmm…
It’s plain Stupid..! I use hotmail id only for one purpose.. (download live writer !! and some other stuff ). it’s full of usability issues and top it all a glaring in your face banner accupying abt 25% of the page on the top.
They don’t need to do lot of good stuff, but let me check my mail easily..
Microsoft is really a crazy co. their hotmail sucks so bad..if you dont check ur accnt for 60 days, they delete all your emails..WTF!
they don’t delete any emails, cuz i have mine, this is a good idea, which no one has comeup with, except AOL and hotmail, so if you don’t like it, then dont read it, go and use gmail. Now gmail isn’t much better, hotmail now has better interface and 5GB storage, so quit wining.
What you guys talking about!!?
I think this is the COOLEST idea MS has come up with in a long time! Not only can you choose a unique domain, its 5 gb!!! I think its kickass:)
@Madhavi
Y! offers unlimited now..so does Indiatimes..and honestly, no matter how many mails u receive a day, u will NEVER go out of space in Gmail (atleast for another 2 years).
yes
Agree with you. This is idiotic. For people who think this is innovative, http://www.mail.com had this way back in 1997- it is way back since hotmail was out only in 1996. And now even AOL offers it https://domains.aol.com/personaldomain/app/domainHomeSearch . Been there done that concept. Yes it seems very new to a lot of people since the reach of the internet has widened in india- however i dont think it would effect the existing situation – very rightly as you mentioned.
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hey wud any1 help me……wen i m opening….coolhotmail.com….its asking me 4 password n id………4 authentication…….i m new to it……..hw to get thosde…..plz help me…..my mail add is achyut_masti@yahoo.com
well there seems to be a lot of discussion on this..
i ve gotten an id for myself n i tnkh its really cool… well it aint just clothes that suit one s personality.. i thnk this is a nice way to express what you thnk of yourself ur likes etc…
i do thnk ppl shld go n explore.. and abt the limited domain names. i m sure MS WILL SOON ADD MORE AS PER THE LIKES OF PPL…