This week, Microsoft released their revamped Hotmail email service and it’s called Outlook.com. The interface is surprisingly clean, uncluttered and contains quite a bit of functionality. It incorporates SkyDrive, which will allow attachments of up to 300MB, and social networking integration with Facebook and LinkedIn. I was happy to see that my favourite part of Hotmail, the “Sweep” feature, has been included as well. I use Sweep to quickly rid my Inbox of outdated messages announcing store sales or daily reminders from group-buying sites. Microsoft is hoping that Outlook.com will give Google’s Gmail some competition as they move towards the release of Windows 8. Like Google, Microsoft is now offering unlimited storage, but with the advantage of being able to sort into custom folders, it means not having one large, messy Inbox.
If you currently have a Hotmail or Windows Live account, you can start using Outlook.com immediately with the same email and password. But for those of you who know me, whenever I hear about changes in email domains, all I can think is: “It’s time to grab a new email address!”
Right from Day 1, I’ve signed up for every free email account possible. This has been partially for my own curiosity’s sake, to see which email client is better but also to hedge my bets. At one point, I was the proud owner of 17 different email accounts, including my favourite integrated messaging (voicemail, email, fax) system, ZDNetOneBox.com. When I started using the Internet back in 1995, I had no way of knowing which free email service would stay and I would always give out the email address from my Internet service provider (ISP). Little did I know that I would go through many ISP’s over a 17-year period, but still retain my web-based email from Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and Excite Mail.
As Hotmail is being phased out from Microsoft, I recommend jumping on the bandwagon and quickly signing up for the address that you want from Outlook.com. If you wait for directions regarding an upgrade of your Hotmail account, you may lose out on the opportunity to get “yourname@outlook.com”. That happened to me when Yahoo! bought Geocities and I wrongly assumed that my email account would be ported over. For a geek like me, I think that getting a firstname.lastname@outlook.com email address for my kids is important. It’s going to look great on their resumes when they start applying for jobs in the future!
Sounds great!! Where do I sign up for a new account?
The website is http://www.outlook.com . Good luck with getting your address!