In cyberspace, our emails IDs are virtually our signatures. But somehow don’t you feel that an email ID is bereft of the singular thing called – a personality. After all, how lively is jimsmith@emailaddress.com? Even an illegible scrawl of a signature is a personality stamp. But a signature generally does not tell us much, except perhaps the gender maybe. In the kitchen soup of generic email IDs, how do you raise your cool quotient? Get a personalized email ID which is you…individualistic and unique.
The most professional but pocket pinching way is to buy your own domain address and a few email IDs with it. But that’s like an elephant gun for a mosquito. Easier and free solutions exist. Three email services which let you create email IDs with a touch of personalization.
Mail.com is a free web based email service which lets you pick from 250 mail addresses. Addresses fall into ‘domains’ like jobs (e.g. consultant.com, chef.com, doctor.com), hobbies (e.g. collector.org, elvisfan.com, artlover.com), locations (e.g. europe.com, usa.com), fun (e.g. cybergal.com, couple.com, witty.com).
Hmm…I might go with techie.com. But as someone famous once said – what’s in a name? So it is with email addresses. Let’s see what the online email service has to offer behind the façade of an alias. With a straightforward signup, we enter our domain space.
- Mail.com offers 3GB of storage space.
- The interface is not very eye-catching and is embellished with ad-banners. The premium version is ad free.
- Other features include the usual calendar, address book and a notepad.
- Spam settings go by the name of Sentry service and let you set mail sensitivity, white lists and junk mail filters.
- Mail settings lets you setup and read e-mail from up to five external e-mail accounts.
- The compose box gives a choice of HTML and text based mails with an included spell checker.
- Setup three signatures to personalize your mails further.
- Mail size is limited to 5MB.
- A downloadable Mail Alert program allows you to be on top of new mails with notifications.
Mail.com on the face of it lacks some advanced features like a POP3 access for the free service and a virus scanner. Its appeal lies in the domain name flexibility it provides. Being ad based and not yet fully rounded makes it a basic web based email service.
Here’s one biggie – MSN brings us CoolHotmail. Yes, it’s an offering geared more for the Indian youth. But the lure is universal – define who you are with your email ID. CoolHotmail offers nearly 250 domain names to sift through and pick. If you ignore some of the India centric names, CoolHotmail does offer lots of unique IDs. And it’s for the young and the young at heart.
Go by who you are, what you like, where you live or even if you stand apart and choose an email ID. cooldude@individuality.in sounded cool enough for me. With a press of the go button, it’s the familiar Windows Live signup. Behind the scenes the interface and features are all of course, Hotmail.
As it’s the familiar Hotmail (with a different alias!), I won’t go into the features of the third most popular email platform. Instead, let me go directly look at the offering from another biggie – AOL.
If you like the look to be Web 2.0, then this is it. Tunome (pronounced as “To Know Me”) is about personalizing your email identity with motley of domain choices. The free web based email service is courtesy AOL.
How does a name like webwriter@fanoftheweb.com sound? That’s the one I picked up.
Creating a personalized email address is a cinch with Tunome. Type in the kind of email name you want…Tunome will let you know if it’s available and will give you choices from nearly 200 domain names it has under categories like technology, health, sports, business et.al. A few obligatory registration steps later you have your own personalized email account.
- The interface is a replica of AOL’s default online email service. You also have several themes to choose from…a further touch of personalization.
- The compose button tacks together email, IM and SMS under one click. Three parts of your buddy talk from the comforts of your inbox.
- Change the way you write your email with lots of stationery options.
- Arrange and assort folders to better manage your emails. To-do’s and even reminders aid your productivity.
- Handy sidebar layout gives access to several tool and web service plug-ins like Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Video search, Weather, Stock Quotes etc.
- Settings take you into the nitty gritty of your account – Spam settings and mail filters are among the usual bouquet of features. Mobile Mail settings ease access using a mobile device. AOL Sync allows you to combine your AOL contacts and calendar events from Outlook. Note: AOL mobile services are U.S only.
- One of the most user friendly tools is the email account’s ability to easily migrate into AOL service from any other. AOL Easy Transfer copies your personal data (contact and emails) to your new AOL email account and notifies your friends with the new email address.
Tunome harps that it’s possible to have some fun in your inbox and be serious about it at the same time. It’s colorful, slick and zingy.
Choosing a personal identity is just one side of the coin. But what’s more vital is a good email service which synergizes everything into a quality package. That’s where perhaps Gmail has come out on top with its host of productivity features. If the idea is to live inside your inbox and treat it as a command center, AOL’s offering comes close.
Which email service is the best according to you? Do you hanker for your own named mail domain? Or do you maintain that – ‘What’s in a name!’
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