12 ms·

How Hotmail changed Microsoft and email

168 points by ohjeez 9y ago

V2hLe0ThslzRaV2 9y ago
Anyone interested in story behind Hotmail should checkout: "PS: I Love You. Get Your Free Email at Hotmail" https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free-email-at-hotmail/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-fre... and here is the story of how Microsoft acquired Hotmail: https://twit.tv/shows/twit-bits/episodes/4597 https://twit.tv/shows/twit-bits/episodes/4597
- smelendez 9y ago
  "P.S. I love you" could have been in the referral link at the bottom? What a mistake that would have been, especially when people were new to email and online ads.
- lathiat 9y ago
  Relatedly unrelatedly reminded me of the ILOVEYOU virus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU
bluedino 9y ago
I love the story behind the FreeBSD to NT switchover
- blibble 9y ago
  if you think that one's good have a read about TradElect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradElect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradElect a super high-profile project to show that Windows NT, SQL Server and .NET were ready to run a high-availability, high-throughput, low-latency critical system, which MS could then use as a case study for Windows replacing ancient unix systems you can guess how it all ended you won't find any mention of TradElect on the MS "get the facts" website these days...
  - kev009 9y ago
    I wonder how little that has to do with WinNT (which is actually a fabulous kernel), and how much has to do with Accenture. When I saw Accenture as the developer, alarm bells went off.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    It was all the execution and who did it, than the tech. Anyone that has dealt with any major consulting company with offshore offices, knows how these projects end, even before they are fully ramped up.
jjguy 9y ago
If you like history like this, you should also read “showstopper: the breakneck race to create Windows NT” (1). It profiles Cutler’s team as they go through the period described briefly in this article to make Windows NT an actual contender to the Unix-based OSes. 1- https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Microsoft/dp/0029356717 https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Mic...
- jpalomaki 9y ago
  And another one about the .net: https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Windows-Fumbled-Future-Microsoft/dp/1416573259#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1514755645982 https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Windows-Fumbled-Future-Micro...
- j_s 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285
- yuhong 9y ago
  Don't forget the OS/2 2.0 debacle, which is an important part of the story and is so bad it is one of my favorite topics.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Showstopper is one of my favorite product development accounts. The other classic is Soul of a New Machine, which has a hardware focus. I worked with many of the folks in that book, albeit a few years after the event chronicled.
cryptoz 9y ago
Is MS Hotmail the email service that modified every outgoing mail to have an advertisement for itself in each email? Kind of like a vastly more aggressive and earlier version of 'Sent from my iPhone'? I can't remember if it was Hotmail or Yahoo or both. But all the other advantages of Gmail aside, not modifying your outgoing mail to include advertisements is a big one.
- helloworld 9y ago
  In Hotmail's early days -- before the Microsoft acquisition -- that email tagline was the VC Tim Draper's idea: https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free-email-at-hotmail/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-fre...
- Feniks 9y ago
  Yep just give everything to the Google machine. What could possibly go wrong? IIRC Google used to scan your emails to serve personal ads.
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    > IIRC Google used to scan your emails to serve personal ads. Oh I assumed they still do. Did they stop that practice? Also I'm not suggesting that giving everything to The Google Machine is a good thing. I was just pointing out the super sleazy gross tactics.
    - noisem4ker 9y ago
      They stopped last june: https://qz.com/1014816/google-will-no-longer-mine-your-emails-for-advertising-data/ https://qz.com/1014816/google-will-no-longer-mine-your-email...
      - jrcii 9y ago
        I guarantee they're still scanning the emails.
  - 9y ago
dmarlow 9y ago
Looking at that Hotmail login screen makes me think how much things have evolved since then. It also makes me think whether we we're just technically nascent during those days or if just severally limited.
late2part 9y ago
I hear a guy named Mike Meyers made a lot of it happen in practice!!!
pablo-massa 9y ago
Reading this story I find a correlation between Hotmail and WhatsApp, a simple and free product that introduce to a massive audience a different way of communication (Hotmail = Email, WhatsApp = Messaging). And seeing how Hotmail lost relevance and Gmail take his place few years ago, I'm wondering, is possible now that a massive product like WhatsApp can be replaced with other that do the same thing in the same way? Why Gmail won?, because the 1GB?, UI/UX?, Google marketing? Snapchat is losing to Instagram because Instagram was a established product that start to mimic Snapchat, but a new player that beat WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger? (not in China [1]). Also, is WhatsApp/Messaging taking the place of email for younger audiences, casual chat, non-work related communications? Oh, I have an idea, I will love to have a "email" feature on Signal, move the asynchronous way of communication of email to the messaging apps will be awesome to avoid the attention economy / texting fatigue (and have encrypted email without the PGP complexity!). A nice feature to Signal to differentiate from the competition imo. I'm crazy? [1] https://www.similarweb.com/blog/popular-messaging-apps-by-country https://www.similarweb.com/blog/popular-messaging-apps-by-co...
- yeukhon 9y ago
  WhatsApp and Wechat are now very widely used in all age levels for both work as non-work purposes. Not so much with Snapchat. Telegram is catching up and I feel it is contesting the space. WhatsApp lacks mini games, channels and stickers. Is your idea of email in app like a thread communication?
  - pablo-massa 9y ago
    I'm not familiarized with "thread communication" term, I mean a carbon copy of email communication: subject, message, a UI/UX that give you peace to write without read checks, "Writing..." and "Online" statuses of the recipients.
- shakna 9y ago
  At least in my area, 3 things made Gmail win, and it's a strategy I don't think can win again. 1. Gmail was invite only. It was a badge of prestige, and invites were only handed over to close friends and suck-ups. 2. Deleting emails was a regular need, but Gmail increased your space every time you logged in. 3. Spam protection. Overnight your inbox no longer needed to be pruned for actual emails. None of those three things is revolutionary anymore. Spam protection is harder now, and spam senders are more intelligent. Invite-only things are viewed with suspicion, not excitement. Most messaging services have enough space per user that deleting messages isn't a concern anymore. Maybe someone else can revolutionise, but it won't be based on those features. A new strategy will be needed.
pablo-massa 9y ago
The article does a good job digging on the dev/it details of the story, as a designer, I will love to read about the UI/UX side, I think this field also have lot of impact on how Hotmail history unfolded. I remember this nice UX case study of Windows 95 that I found here in Hacker News, it was gold https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12330899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12330899
arca_vorago 9y ago
Slightly offtopic, but I was a beta steam tester and used my hotmail for it at the time in ~2002, and to this day my steam account name is still my hotmail address, though they send email to the right place. So everytime I launch steam I get a reminder of the hotmail days. I don't even own the address anymore, I hope they never try to send email there.

168 points by ohjeez 9y ago

Anyone interested in story behind Hotmail should checkout: "PS: I Love You. Get Your Free Email at Hotmail" https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free-email-at-hotmail/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-fre... and here is the story of how Microsoft acquired Hotmail: https://twit.tv/shows/twit-bits/episodes/4597 https://twit.tv/shows/twit-bits/episodes/4597

smelendez 9y ago
"P.S. I love you" could have been in the referral link at the bottom? What a mistake that would have been, especially when people were new to email and online ads.
lathiat 9y ago
Relatedly unrelatedly reminded me of the ILOVEYOU virus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU

bluedino 9y ago

I love the story behind the FreeBSD to NT switchover

blibble 9y ago
if you think that one's good have a read about TradElect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradElect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradElect a super high-profile project to show that Windows NT, SQL Server and .NET were ready to run a high-availability, high-throughput, low-latency critical system, which MS could then use as a case study for Windows replacing ancient unix systems you can guess how it all ended you won't find any mention of TradElect on the MS "get the facts" website these days...
- kev009 9y ago
  I wonder how little that has to do with WinNT (which is actually a fabulous kernel), and how much has to do with Accenture. When I saw Accenture as the developer, alarm bells went off.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  It was all the execution and who did it, than the tech. Anyone that has dealt with any major consulting company with offshore offices, knows how these projects end, even before they are fully ramped up.

jjguy 9y ago

If you like history like this, you should also read “showstopper: the breakneck race to create Windows NT” (1). It profiles Cutler’s team as they go through the period described briefly in this article to make Windows NT an actual contender to the Unix-based OSes. 1- https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Microsoft/dp/0029356717 https://www.amazon.com/Show-Stopper-Breakneck-Generation-Mic...

jpalomaki 9y ago
And another one about the .net: https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Windows-Fumbled-Future-Microsoft/dp/1416573259#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1514755645982 https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Windows-Fumbled-Future-Micro...
j_s 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15748285
yuhong 9y ago
Don't forget the OS/2 2.0 debacle, which is an important part of the story and is so bad it is one of my favorite topics.
ghaff 9y ago
Showstopper is one of my favorite product development accounts. The other classic is Soul of a New Machine, which has a hardware focus. I worked with many of the folks in that book, albeit a few years after the event chronicled.

cryptoz 9y ago

Is MS Hotmail the email service that modified every outgoing mail to have an advertisement for itself in each email? Kind of like a vastly more aggressive and earlier version of 'Sent from my iPhone'? I can't remember if it was Hotmail or Yahoo or both. But all the other advantages of Gmail aside, not modifying your outgoing mail to include advertisements is a big one.

helloworld 9y ago
In Hotmail's early days -- before the Microsoft acquisition -- that email tagline was the VC Tim Draper's idea: https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free-email-at-hotmail/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-fre...
Feniks 9y ago
Yep just give everything to the Google machine. What could possibly go wrong? IIRC Google used to scan your emails to serve personal ads.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  > IIRC Google used to scan your emails to serve personal ads. Oh I assumed they still do. Did they stop that practice? Also I'm not suggesting that giving everything to The Google Machine is a good thing. I was just pointing out the super sleazy gross tactics.
  - noisem4ker 9y ago
    They stopped last june: https://qz.com/1014816/google-will-no-longer-mine-your-emails-for-advertising-data/ https://qz.com/1014816/google-will-no-longer-mine-your-email...
    - jrcii 9y ago
      I guarantee they're still scanning the emails.
- 9y ago

dmarlow 9y ago

Looking at that Hotmail login screen makes me think how much things have evolved since then. It also makes me think whether we we're just technically nascent during those days or if just severally limited.

late2part 9y ago

I hear a guy named Mike Meyers made a lot of it happen in practice!!!

pablo-massa 9y ago

Reading this story I find a correlation between Hotmail and WhatsApp, a simple and free product that introduce to a massive audience a different way of communication (Hotmail = Email, WhatsApp = Messaging). And seeing how Hotmail lost relevance and Gmail take his place few years ago, I'm wondering, is possible now that a massive product like WhatsApp can be replaced with other that do the same thing in the same way? Why Gmail won?, because the 1GB?, UI/UX?, Google marketing? Snapchat is losing to Instagram because Instagram was a established product that start to mimic Snapchat, but a new player that beat WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger? (not in China [1]). Also, is WhatsApp/Messaging taking the place of email for younger audiences, casual chat, non-work related communications? Oh, I have an idea, I will love to have a "email" feature on Signal, move the asynchronous way of communication of email to the messaging apps will be awesome to avoid the attention economy / texting fatigue (and have encrypted email without the PGP complexity!). A nice feature to Signal to differentiate from the competition imo. I'm crazy? [1] https://www.similarweb.com/blog/popular-messaging-apps-by-country https://www.similarweb.com/blog/popular-messaging-apps-by-co...

yeukhon 9y ago
WhatsApp and Wechat are now very widely used in all age levels for both work as non-work purposes. Not so much with Snapchat. Telegram is catching up and I feel it is contesting the space. WhatsApp lacks mini games, channels and stickers. Is your idea of email in app like a thread communication?
- pablo-massa 9y ago
  I'm not familiarized with "thread communication" term, I mean a carbon copy of email communication: subject, message, a UI/UX that give you peace to write without read checks, "Writing..." and "Online" statuses of the recipients.
shakna 9y ago
At least in my area, 3 things made Gmail win, and it's a strategy I don't think can win again. 1. Gmail was invite only. It was a badge of prestige, and invites were only handed over to close friends and suck-ups. 2. Deleting emails was a regular need, but Gmail increased your space every time you logged in. 3. Spam protection. Overnight your inbox no longer needed to be pruned for actual emails. None of those three things is revolutionary anymore. Spam protection is harder now, and spam senders are more intelligent. Invite-only things are viewed with suspicion, not excitement. Most messaging services have enough space per user that deleting messages isn't a concern anymore. Maybe someone else can revolutionise, but it won't be based on those features. A new strategy will be needed.

pablo-massa 9y ago

The article does a good job digging on the dev/it details of the story, as a designer, I will love to read about the UI/UX side, I think this field also have lot of impact on how Hotmail history unfolded. I remember this nice UX case study of Windows 95 that I found here in Hacker News, it was gold https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12330899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12330899

arca_vorago 9y ago

Slightly offtopic, but I was a beta steam tester and used my hotmail for it at the time in ~2002, and to this day my steam account name is still my hotmail address, though they send email to the right place. So everytime I launch steam I get a reminder of the hotmail days. I don't even own the address anymore, I hope they never try to send email there.