I was just thinking about what my first personal e-mail address was, and realized it was my Hotmail account... I've had it for so long now, I can't remember when I first signed up..

anyone know when Hotmail first began? it's history or whatnot.. I did a couple google searches but game up empty.

I know i've had my hotmail account for at least 6-7 years now..

any help would be appreciated.

Definately since about 97, that's when I first got mine ...

just about the time when spam started... ;)

since the beginning of time..... LOL!

I think it was probably about the mid 90's, its been there as long as ive been using the net and ive been using it since about 96...

HOTMAIL WAS FORMED
Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith founded Hotmail in 1996, one of the Internet's first Web-based e-mail service providers on $300,000 then sold to Microsoft for an estimated $400 million.

What a waste of money. I never liked Hotmail. USA.net was - when it was free - one of the best.

Originally posted by timechange.com
What a waste of money. I never liked Hotmail. USA.net was - when it was free - one of the best. $400million is pocket change to MS though - even then it was! :D

It has been around for a really long time.

netcom was my first email. hotmail was my first web based email and that was a looooong time ago. Then that email got spammed to death and I since changed and now have a personal email and then my spam email for places where they require an email.

AOL had all e-mails from hotmail.com banned at least as early as 1996.

Hotmail was the first... When MS bought it, there were many competitors, but still; it justified the price of $400m.

I've still got my account I set up in '96 (use it for signing up to sites I don't trust with my real email address)

That's $399,700,000 profit for coming up with Hotmail... Damn!

I bet it's worth a lot now... hehe.

my first email address was with my ISP, I also got a hotmail address in about '97, but now I run my own mail server and i'm anti-hotmail ;)

Originally posted by Bub Host
my first email address was with my ISP, I also got a hotmail address in about '97, but now I run my own mail server and i'm anti-hotmail ;)

why are you anti hotmail ?

Originally posted by timechange.com
What a waste of money. I never liked Hotmail. USA.net was - when it was free - one of the best.


isnt it still?

https://www.netaddress.com/tpl/Subscribe/Step1?Locale=en&AdInfo=&Referer=&T=1080915369837922

Originally posted by phill2003
why are you anti hotmail ?

1. There are other much better free email services with more disk space etc.

2. Everyone uses Hotmail, simply because it's 'Hotmail' not because they are the best free email provider

3. Hotmail addresses seem to get more SPAM

4. Free email services suck :)

Originally posted by Bub Host
1. There are other much better free email services with more disk space etc.

2. Everyone uses Hotmail, simply because it's 'Hotmail' not because they are the best free email provider

3. Hotmail addresses seem to get more SPAM

4. Free email services suck :)

1. Such as?

2. So?

3. Proof?

4. Why? For a main email -- yes, for a backup or 'alternate' email, they're great.

Originally posted by DanX
. . .
4. Why? For a main email -- yes, for a backup or 'alternate' email, they're great. [/B]

Yes they are. Plus you can check hotmail accounts like pop3 using outlook unlike other free web based accounts. i.e. yahoo.

1. Such as most of the free email providers at http://www.emailaddresses.com/

2. Hotmail is just so common, everyones got one, and i'm just saying from my point of view they aren't good.....

3. Just my own opinion, when I had Hotmail it got SPAM galore and I hadn't even signed up for anything......and when I started my hosting biz and I had my own mail server etc. not one drop of SPAM unless I signed up for things etc.

4. Yes they are good for backup addresses, but the majority of people use them as their primary addy's, when the could just use their ISP address which would most likely have:

1. More space,
2. Not get blocked when signing up for things,
3. More professional than a hotmail addy...

And lets face it, hotmail addresses in the busienss world don't project a professional image, whereas a less known free email address wont be so obvious...

This is just my opinion by the way.....

I agree that most free services tend to suck... but Google has just announced their version of the free email and it really sounds quite good. According to their website gmail will have 1Gb of storage space for their free accounts!

"Gmail is a free, search-based webmail service that includes 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of storage. The backbone of Gmail is a powerful Google search engine that quickly recalls any message an account owner has ever sent or received. That means there's no need to file messages in order to find them again. "

That is one way to try to get the marketshare. It currently is in beta.

Bub Host, your comments aren't really relevant to what's being discussed in terms of HotMail. Most people here use it as a backup address for when their SMTP server goes down. If your SMTP server or server in general is down, and a client wants to contact you, I doubt they'll care how professional it is. Now, spam doesn't matter -- you're only using this account as a last resort. Now, we all know HotMail has a huge financial backing, so it won't terminate our account or go down -- what about other sites? Now, the entire argument about 'everyones using it' is irrelevant as it doesn't mean a thing. That's like saying everyone has red tulips in their yard so they must be bad. Not planting them because everyone else has them is almost irrational, in a sense..

Originally posted by DanX
Bub Host, your comments aren't really relevant to what's being discussed in terms of HotMail. Most people here use it as a backup address for when their SMTP server goes down. If your SMTP server or server in general is down, and a client wants to contact you, I doubt they'll care how professional it is. Now, spam doesn't matter -- you're only using this account as a last resort. Now, we all know HotMail has a huge financial backing, so it won't terminate our account or go down -- what about other sites? Now, the entire argument about 'everyones using it' is irrelevant as it doesn't mean a thing. That's like saying everyone has red tulips in their yard so they must be bad. Not planting them because everyone else has them is almost irrational, in a sense..

yes, I agree with you for the most part, however everywhere I look its hotmail addresses...its like everyone driving red cars ;) I know this has nothing to do with it but this is just my opinion....

Whether you like it or not, Hotmail still offers one of the best web-based e-mail services, free or paid. Ads, low storage, etc. is besides the point.

The reason why everyone uses Hotmail is because they were original. Everyone else is just an imitation.

Originally posted by Subhadip
The reason why everyone uses Hotmail is because they were original. Everyone else is just an imitation.

right, so your saying that anything after the original is an imitation? So all hosts besides the first host to ever exist are just imitations?

Originally posted by prautes
I agree that most free services tend to suck... but Google has just announced their version of the free email and it really sounds quite good. According to their website gmail will have 1Gb of storage space for their free accounts!

"Gmail is a free, search-based webmail service that includes 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of storage. The backbone of Gmail is a powerful Google search engine that quickly recalls any message an account owner has ever sent or received. That means there's no need to file messages in order to find them again. "

That is one way to try to get the marketshare. It currently is in beta.

I thought squirrelmail did the same thing? ;)

Originally posted by Bub Host
right, so your saying that anything after the original is an imitation? So all hosts besides the first host to ever exist are just imitations?

I believe that is what he is saying....

"Anything else is just Cheap Imitation"
Some one has that in their sig on WHT about WHT.

I can't remember when it was started (It was already established when i first went online - '97), but I do remember microsoft ran it on freebsd for several years ;)

phision.com - read the thread

i have a hotmail account, but i dislike hotmail in general because of the $19.95 that millions of people pay for a measly 10 MB of storage (and 3 MB attachment limit), plus the marketing emails microsoft sends to all accounts, plus the ads shown in the web interface.