Email Progressively
May 22nd, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday
Problem:
Really, that should read “Problems.”
You need email. You might like being able to access you email from remote locations. So, there’s a good chance you have one of the many free webmail services out there. These services can also be checked from your mobile phone, and most provide excellent spam and junk mail blocking. They each have varying degrees of virus protection (You can read about a whole mess ‘o them here and here.)
But each have some issues:
- Yahoo! Mail: They display flash-based ads when you’re reading and composing email. They also add ads at the bottom of the emails you send.
- Google’s Gmail: They show text ads next to your emails, and there are some concerns about the privacy of the emails and the account as a whole. Read about those concerns here and here and here.
- Microsoft’s Hotmail: They also let you gawk at flash ads, links to articles on the MSNBC webpage (which would then let you gawk at more flash ads), and the bottom of emails you send include ads for Microsoft’s search engine (which couldn’t mimic Google’s spare presentation more without actually being Google.com).
- AOL: Besides the requisite flash ads, AOL’s free mail is pop-up: when you try to write a new message, a new window opens for you to write your email. (You get to choose your font.) The bottom of the emails you send with AOL also include ads, in our tests these ads were links for AOL services,
Regardless, you’re having to see more advertising than you might want to while reading or composing email, and you might not want to send ads for free. The storage size is fantastic (almost ridiculous in the case of Google’s 2.8 gigs and Yahoo’s 1 gig), and most of the search features rock as well. We’ve used the major web-mail providers in the past. We still do on occasion (we ain’t perfect, okay?).
These email addresses function as advertising for the company offering the email. If you have a business and use these services, you don’t really have a unique email address. Or if you’re a job seeker, it might be sweet to have a sweeter email address. So the upshot is this: there might be a better fit for you, and a progressive one at that.
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Make Progress:
We recommend, if you’re looking to free yourself from the aforementioned providers, that you consider purchasing an email address through a domain name registrar like GoDaddy.com. Their email accounts have virus protection, spam blocking, cell phone text-mail, and webmail. You can also set up your account with Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, or, if you want to be even more progressive, you could use Thunderbird (which replaces Outlook) or Sea Monkey (which can be used to replace Mail). To acquire this kind of email, you essentially purchase a domain name. (If you really want to, you can have your new mail forwarded to a free webmail address.) What are the other pro’s to this? you ask. Here goes:
- If you have a small business, even if you don’t want a webpage, this purchase allows you to have control over your business’s possible domain name, and allows for your employees to have unique email addresses that advertise your company as opposed to someone else’s (Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and so on and yada yada and etc.).
- If you’re an individual, this purchase might also be helpful: you can protect the domain names that contain your name. You will also have a more memorable email address that might help you stand out on resumes and in job applications.
- If you’re a parent, each member of your family could have an personalized email account, like Pebbles@TheFlintstones.com, and as a parent you can have more control over your children’s experience on the web, which, if you haven’t heard, is world wide!
- Again, if you don’t want to set up a “regular” webpage, you can use the domain name for other purposes. You could bounce folks from your domain name to the blog you write. You could, however, use this as an excuse to get cracking on designing a basic page with a resume, and the like. If you’re at all tech savvy, this seems like a must, so what are you waiting for?
Please note that this ain’t no advertisement for Go Daddy. (They’re not giving us any money for this, though, you know, if they want to the only thing stopping them is them.) They’re just one of oodles of privately held companies you could go with. We recommend using a private company for both the domain and server, you know, because we’re private kinds of guys.
If you do this, we highly (and not the stoned kind of highly, the sober kind) recommend “privatizing” the purchase. Otherwise your name, address and email address appear when someone does a WhoIs search on your domain name.
If you’ve got other ideas or questions about better emailing, just leave us a comment or shoot us a line, and by line, we mean “email.”
Gmail image courtesy of this kind dude.
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