Gmail Takeover: The Rise and Fall of Hotmail
Hotmail was once the leader of the pack, then Gmail came along
Web-based email was an innovation back in the days, the late 1990s. Before that, email had to be read and sent using client softwares, as it had been done traditionally since 1965.
Hotmail launched in July of 1996, grew to over 6 million users in about a year. Microsoft acquired Hotmail in December 1997 for around $400 million. The user base continued growing, reaching over 30 million by February 1999.
How did Hotmail grow so fast?
Hotmail was also notable for its “growth hacking” technique. Hotmail put a message at the bottom of every email sent using Hotmail — ‘PS: I love you. Get your free e-mail at Hotmail.’ That helped Hotmail get 12 million users in 18 months (at a time when there were only 70 million Internet users.)
May 7, 2007, as the 260 million MSN Hotmail accounts worldwide gained access to the new system
Outlook.com graduated preview stage on 18 February 2013. According to Microsoft, the upgrade was deployed on April 3, 2013; users kept their existing Hotmail accounts and received the option of having an @outlook.com email address. By May 2013, Outlook.com had 400 million active users.
And that’s all she wrote. Bye bye Hotmail.
Did you pay for a Gmail invite?
Google’s popular email service, Gmail, started life as an internal mail system for Google employees, developed by Paul Buchheit in 2001. It wasn’t unveiled to the public until a limited, invite-only beta release in 2004.
I remember the days when these Gmail invites were precious, oh so precious, that people were selling invites on eBay for $500. That didn’t last long, but it sure was comical.
What’s the difference between Outlook.com and Gmail?
As they say, it’s all about the experience. Both are chock-full of features now, in 2022. But for millions of users who have their webmail on one service and not the other, it’s probably more about keeping their email address. Not so many people take the time and effort to do a side-by-side comparison for which one is better for them.
When did Gmail become a full release?
It was made publicly available in 2007 and dropped its “beta” status in 2009. In case you’re curious about why it took 5 years of beta-testing, Slate wrote up some thoughts and speculations—
Email has takeover my work life
For so many of us office workers, even those working from home, it sure feels like the majority of our day is reading, replying, and writing emails. The other thing that dominates my work hours is Excel spreadsheets. I’d put a timer to it but I really don’t need to. All my time spent in the inbox and Excel. How did work come to this??
Email Statistics - a 2019 Snapshot
Ten years later, since the full release of Gmail, the number of emails opened daily continue to increase. It’s no longer a webmail world, now that many people have multiple devices beyond the desktop PC, like laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Here’s a snapshot of how most people are accessing emails—
Thanks for reading this article. That’s all I’ve got to say about this topic, for now.
