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Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

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Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#31

Post by jackmoore »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #26
adventureful wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems strange. I've had a gmail account since the first open days of the beta in 2004, and never get spam in my inbox. Their spam filtering works extraordinarily well for me.

Same for me. I'm far from a Google lover, but I opened my Gmail account in 2004 (when it was still invitation-only), and never, ever did I hesitate to put my email address even in the shitiest, scammiest sites/registration forums I see. Only about 5-6 spams in the past 8 years, an 0 false positives. My previous experience with Yahoo (pre 2004) was much much worse. I haven't use Hotmail though, and as I seriously doub…

I guess I'm the only one that gets spam with Gmail. I receive about 15,000 spam a month of which 10-20 a day get through. Unfortunately my email address is in the JavaScript of a lot of websites due to a plugin I authored.

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#33

Post by glassx »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #10

We recently ran a pilot with some students from our 13 thousand student base. Our reports show: 69% Hotmail; 13% Yahoo!; 10% Gmail.

Similar results here, we're an university with about 16 thousand: 41% hotmail, 21% yahoo, 10% gmail.

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#34

Post by fps »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #26
adventureful wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems strange. I've had a gmail account since the first open days of the beta in 2004, and never get spam in my inbox. Their spam filtering works extraordinarily well for me.

Same for me. I'm far from a Google lover, but I opened my Gmail account in 2004 (when it was still invitation-only), and never, ever did I hesitate to put my email address even in the shitiest, scammiest sites/registration forums I see. Only about 5-6 spams in the past 8 years, an 0 false positives. My previous experience with Yahoo (pre 2004) was much much worse. I haven't use Hotmail though, and as I seriously doub…

How do you count "getting spam"?

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.

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#35

Post by fps »

jackmoore wrote: post #31
pooriaazimi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me. I'm far from a Google lover, but I opened my Gmail account in 2004 (when it was still invitation-only), and never, ever did I hesitate to put my email address even in the shitiest, scammiest sites/registration forums I see. Only about 5-6 spams in the past 8 years, an 0 false positives. My previous experience with Yahoo (pre 2004) was much much worse. I haven't use Hotmail though, and as I seriously doub…

I guess I'm the only one that gets spam with Gmail. I receive about 15,000 spam a month of which 10-20 a day get through. Unfortunately my email address is in the JavaScript of a lot of websites due to a plugin I authored.

Not alone; I'm in the same boat, although I haven't done as much to get my address "out there"

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#36

Post by p0ckets »

Monotoko wrote: post #9

A lot of 90's kids who came online in the early 2000's (me being one of them) used MSN for instant messenger, and I still do to this day. I use Gmail for email, the only thing my hotmail is used for is to sign into MSN.

You can sign up for MSN messenger with any email address.

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#37

Post by slavak »

acheron wrote: post #25
sriramk wrote: post #13

I have a reasonably popular app and I was stunned to see how much Yahoo and Hotmail addresses dominate. Very different from my friends circles.

I sign up for most apps with my Yahoo account, because why should I give Random App my real email address? For the most part I don't care what it's emailing me, so I just need an address where I can go to click on the inevitable "activation" link.

That is why mailinator.com was created...

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#38

Post by dr42 »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #28
dr42 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there's a strong correlation between the email account host and the place on the early adopter curve. There's nothing wrong about wanting to live near other early adopters.

What? 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 may be disgusting to you, and you may not understand what I meant, but I'm afraid, my friend, that doesn't change the fact that there are correlations between the choices you make and your socioeconomic profile. It's the whole basis of collaborative filtering. You like movie A, B and C and will likely like movie Z. You buy a Mac and are likely to book more upscale hotels, you keep an old yahoo or hotmail account and you're likely further down the adopter curve.

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)

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#39

Post by nucleardog »

Retric wrote: post #30
adventureful wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems strange. I've had a gmail account since the first open days of the beta in 2004, and never get spam in my inbox. Their spam filtering works extraordinarily well for me.

Just checked; 718 messages in my Inbox and I have only used the account for Google docks so they are 100% spam. I even double checked the top 20 of them and yep all spam.

Go purchase a domain ($10/yr) and set up Google Apps for Domains. My old gmail account (that I only keep around because Google has a bad habit of launching a service not support Apps accounts for the first few months - need it to log in) gets a bunch of spam (the filter seems to catch it all the odd time I look).

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.

Re: Whoa: It's 2012, and the World's Most Popular Email Service Is ... Hotmail

#40

Post by mattgreenrocks »

dr42 wrote: post #38
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? 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 may be disgusting to you, and you may not understand what I meant, but I'm afraid, my friend, that doesn't change the fact that there are correlations between the choices you make and your socioeconomic profile. It's the whole basis of collaborative filtering. You like movie A, B and C and will likely like movie Z. You buy a Mac and are likely to book more upscale hotels, you keep an old yahoo or hotmail account a…

> 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.

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