Windows Live Hotmail, it's nearly ready...

I've been using the beta version of Live Hotmail for a long while now, and it seemed that the end of the tunnel is near.  According to the official mail from Live Hotmail Team early today, it's nearly launch time. 

To be honest, I joined the Beta tester program nearly a year ago due to the temptation of 2GB inbox.  Initially, I hated the load time and Outlook-like interface.  Very heavy-duty.  I just want an online mail client which is simple and quick.  Similar to <gulp> Gmail.

However, as the year went by, I started to grow into the new Live Hotmail.  Performance had definitely gotten noticeably better.  UI was now intuitive since there was zero learning curve.  The interface was pretty much ported over from Outlook.  I also think having Calendar integrated as a feature is definitely a big win.

There were still some kinks, but the team is busy ironing those out.  One very annoying example --  when I want to mark multiple spam mails so that I can delete them, I have to select which mail I want to delete by clicking on the checkboxes.  However, if I accidentally click outside the checkbox on a single mail, all the ones which were already marked are simply reset.  And I had to do it all over again.   Another is the inability to refresh the inbox automatically when new mails arrive.

On the opposite end, during this same year, Gmail had also gone through multiple changes -- some were good, and some weren't.  For the life of me, I still have trouble figuring out how to forward a mail nor knowing what the star is really for.  For some reason, Gmail's user experience is simply not sticking with me.  Maybe I'm too Microsoft'ized now.  Maybe I'm too old to learn new tricks. 

However, one trend which stand out between these two mail powerhouse over the past year is the amount of clustering ads appearing (or disappearing).  I remembered the old Hotmail used to bombard me with banner ads left, right, top, and bottom.  Gmail was very Googley and blended its text ad within the mail body.  However, when I look at both of them today, I see the opposite.  Live mail just have a banner ad at the top of the viewing pane, almost outside of my consciousness.  The rest of the ads are now bye-bye.  Gmail, on the other hand, has placed sponsored links at the top and to the right of the mail body viewing pane.  The "Map this/Add to Calendar" feature is nice touch, but they are somewhat distracting and make the whole page look busy.

Anyway, back to the near-birth of Live Hotmail.  The official mail from the Hotmail team also stated that there are presents for putting in hard work in their beta program.  And it is ...

<drum roll>

... Beta Badge!

 

I thought the fist icon was pretty neat.  :)

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 02, 2007
  I loved live hotmail from the very beginning and glad it's finally launching. The badges are a big surprise to me :)

• Anonymous
  May 02, 2007
  every thing is ok

• Anonymous
  May 02, 2007
  Can I still register?

• Anonymous
  June 19, 2007
  WE WANT INBOX AUTO REFRESH!!!!!!!!! VIVA MEXICO! VIVA LAS VEGAS!