What Would Make You Switch To Hotmail? [MakeUseOf Poll]

Last week we asked if you thought camera phones will replace the compact digital camera. It seems that most readers give camera phones a vote of confidence and believe they will either replace compact digital cameras or will be used regularly alongside them.

Out of 182 voters, 46% think camera phones will replace compact digital cameras, 45% would rather have both, 2% think camera phones suck and will never replace compact cameras, 4% believe camera phones only have a chance with lens attachments, and 3% think cameras should not be integrated into phones at all.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

With over 90% of the voters, MakeUseOf readers think that camera phones are here to stay as the next generation in casual digital photography.

This week’s poll question is: What Would Make You Switch to Hotmail?

Hotmail is still the largest webmail service out there, and Microsoft are definitely trying to keep their users happy, and maybe even get some new ones on board. The recent upgrades and changes to Hotmail show that it’s far from a dead platform, and with hundreds of millions of users, Microsoft must be doing something right. So where do MakeUseOf readers stand? Let’s find out!

If you already are a Hotmail user, what makes it the best service out there? What do they have that Gmail and others don’t?

Tagged: Opinion & Polls

Yaara Lancet

Yaara (@ylancet) is a freelance writer, editor, and a tech blogger. She runs the language-editing service Revisery and enjoys writing about anything thought-provoking (this very much includes food, buckyballs, and her iPad). Find her also at lnct.org.

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Madis Otenurm

Gmail is best, f**k the rest!
Anonymous

Seriously, what DOES Hotmail have over GMail? It’s disappointing that so many people can’t be bothered to migrate their mail account from any mail service over to GMail because they don’t want to look into how to do it, even if Google does streamline the majority of the process.
Anonymous

Seriously, what DOES Hotmail have over GMail? It’s disappointing that so many people can’t be bothered to migrate their mail account from any mail service over to GMail because they don’t want to look into how to do it, even if Google does streamline the majority of the process.

Henry Lahman

honestly I think it’s integration with office online and skydrive

Anonymous

I suppose so, SkyDrive especially. Google does offer similar capabilities via Docs and GMail, though. Office Online is far better than Docs, though.

http://revisery.com Yaara

There is a way to inegrate Google Docs with Office (Google Cloud Connect), but I suppose many people don’t want to bother when they already have a good solution.

Galileo Vieira

Believe it or not, Hotmail does work for some folks All joking aside, features aren’t the only thing that drives usage. Some people just like what they’re used to and don’t want to be forced to change habits. A recent example of this is the new Facebook layout. It caused a lot of people to be upset, but that’s also b/c they’re now into mass consumer adoption, not just tech enthusiasts like many of us here. At the same time, the product vendor must innovate and bring positive changes to the masses, without causing too many casualties. Not easy, really.
http://revisery.com Yaara

This is true. We can’t forget that Hotmail was there first, and many people just never bothered or never wanted to change what they were used to.

Anonymous

I don`t think I could ever switch to Hotmail. I`ve already synchronised all my files and stuff with Google products such as Google Docs, Gmail and Google Calendar. To switch over to SkyDrive, Hotmail Calendar and Hotmail itself would be a pain, in my opinion. Plus, I never was impressed with their pathetic excuse of a spam filter.

Abc

Actually, it is not such a pain if you want to switch. just use trueswitch to move to hotmail from gmail and hotmail calender will import Gmail’s calender. But you will have to do manual uploading for docs to skydrive.

Also, spam filter is better than any other mail service (at least as far as I think)

Giovanni

I use hotmail for non-important stuff. Their security is horrible. My account has been hacked too many times for it to be trusted with anything important. I would never import my contact to list to it.

http://schjax.priv.no/wordpress Arild Tiller Schjefstad

I have the same experience. Gmail is just better, my account is safe.

TheProductiveAsst

Well, I do use hotmail… in the form of Live… It works for my purposes, meaning I believe it *may* be slightly more private than G-mail. However, I cannot participate in your poll because the only hotmail positive option includes, “It is the best.” I like hotmail; but, overall, I cannot completely agree with this. Unfortunately, G-mail’s interface is cleaner and easier. I prefer LiveMail for their perceived policies, but-and I really hate writing this-Google seems to understand their users just a little better.

http://revisery.com Yaara

You’re right, we probably should have added an “I use Hotmail even though it’s not the best” option.

Your opinion is duly noted!

Chinook

1. It’s Free
2. It’s great for a general email box where I can easily limit the inbox to only certain addresses and send everything else to the junk mail box.
3. It’s sooooo easy to get rid of junk mail
Now don’t get me wrong, Gmail is great it’s only that getting rid of unwanted/junk mail within Gmail is a pain.

SuperBlooper057

@cb4a12fe157e3039e67d11ada9096972:disqus
How to get rid of junk mail in Gmail:1. Click the checkbox next to it.
2. Click “Spam”.
It’s pretty easy.

Galileo Vieira

How would you go about doing that for say, 500 messages at once, including messages not on the current page your seeing?

http://revisery.com Yaara

Interesting, thanks for the input!

Esteban

I like to end arguments with “nobody takes your hotmail/yahoo account seriously”.

Galileo Vieira

There’s another angle to this – Hotmail as an email web app and not as a service. You don’t need to use an @hotmail account to use the service. You can bring in your other accounts and even personal domains to use with Hotmail.

Smumdax

I used to have both Hotmail and Gmail accounts.

Then someday, I started using Gmail more often, mostly because I had switched from a physical paper agenda to the Gcalendar. Then came a job where they were using Gdocs for their schedules… I really liked it, and started using that also, putting Word and Excel away and using them only for very specific stuff that was harder to do on Gdocs.

Then someday, I made all my company’s email send/receive via Gmail.

Afterwards came the contemplation of transfering my Hotmail stuff to Gmail… First up was the process of getting all my Hotmail’s contacts to Gmail. Done.
What made me drop Hotmail totally was when I saw the way Gmail was grouping conversations. After a couple of days of testing and appreciating it, I made the switch. I forwarded all emails received from Hotmail to Gmail, added the “send as hotmail” to it…

I know that since then, Hotmail as improved and does most of the stuff I stated up here… But Gmail is always one improvement further then M$’s mail service. I am never going to Hotmail again.

http://revisery.com Yaara

Thanks for sharing, that’s quite an interesting switching process. I think many people went through something similar when Gmail came around.

Chopsticks

I already have a Hotmail account, but it is NOT the best. I just have multiple accounts, with multiple email service providers. I’d say Gmail is the best, because of how well I can customize it to my needs (innovative+intuitive) whereas Yahoo is a second. In terms of value, my Hotmail account is nothing special. I don’t use it for emailing; I have it because of MSN Messenger.

Johann

You do know you can get a MSN messenger account with a non-hotmail address right? If you sign up with your GMail address then you can have a unified ‘contact name’ across Messenger and Google chat (so all Jabber/XMPP providers). Also GMail can sign you into AIM so you have that and Google Chat in one hit.

Anonymous

I have an account with windows live and I like the look and feel better than gmail, which I also use (probably more). I like the folders setup better. I like the reading pane preview much, much better. I know I can organize stuff in gmail, I just think it’s easier for me in something like windows live or (gasp!) yahoo. All that being said, my serious email takes place in Outlook.

http://revisery.com Yaara

Thanks, it’s nice to get a refreshing opinion like that. I know many people like Hotmail and it’s interesting to see why (I never seriously used it myself).

Maxcb97

Ah, Hotmail. The internets junk folder.
Ebbe

I use both but hotmail (or rather Windows Live) is my main mail-account. Why? Because with Windows Live I could get a mail-address with the tld of my country. With Gmail, it’s @gmail.com, take it or leave it.

http://revisery.com Yaara

Good reason! Thanks for sharing.

R Ze

I already have Hotmail, but I don;t really use it. Although it would be nice if Hotmail included grouped conversations.
Phil Fot

If they paid me USD$5 for every email that I receive and USD$10 for every email I sent, I’d consider switching from GMAIL.
Galileo Vieira

Hey all, Galileo from the Hotmail team here. Really loving this discussion. Many of the reasons cited for not liking Hotmail are pretty standard, and to be honest, we ourselves are to blame. Looking back, we stopped adding things of real value to our users and then Gmail came on the scene with a real strong value prop. We’re still paying the price for having fallen behind – many here are evidence of that. It’s for all these reasons, and many more, that we’ve been working hard on improving Hotmail over the last year or so. It’s defintely not the same product many of you perceive it to be. Do we still have catching up to do? In some areas, defintely. In others, we have some good tools that even avid Gmail users have told us they appreciate. I’ll be around so if anyone has questions, let me know!

Phil Fot

Hi Galileo,

Hotmail may work for younger people. Older net users still remember the pre-M$ days. And the misery when Hotmail moved to exchange/ISS. For many, that’s left an indelible black mark on Hotmail. For others, it the fact that it’s associated with MS, an entity that many people associate with insecure systems and viruses. Whether true or not, it will be hard to shake that off.

Galileo Vieira

Phil, you are right that perceptions are hard to change, especially the negative ones. And there are people who had negative experiences with Hotmail in the past. It’s our job to try and win these hearts and minds back. Is it easy? Not at all. But we must try. We’re going back to the basics of email and getting the fundamentals right. And we’re also trying to add real value to our users by solving real problems. Will that by itself win back users like yourself? Probably not. But we hope that you’ll see the progress we’ve making over the last 18 months or so as a sign of our commitment to making an outstanding product. And, most important of all, we’re having this conversation, and I thank you for putting forth your honest opinion.

Phil Fot

Doing the job is the only thing you can do. Best of luck to you.
http://revisery.com Yaara

Hi Galileo,

Just wanted to thank you for taking part in the interesting discussion that has risen up here. I find it extremely interesting, especially since I was never a Hotmail user and don’t know the platform very well.

Good luck with all you’re doing!

Galileo Vieira

Hey, glad to be part of the conversation. If you ever want to get a tour of the new Hotmail, let me know. Great community btw, hadn’t been here before!

MrBill

I might switch to Hotmail if MicroSoft sold it to Redhat and Redhat fixed it. Anything that runs on a Microsoft machine sucks.
James

Hotmail’s spam filtering is atrocious.