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Hotmail and Paypal were two of the earliest and most famous viral products. To redeem money in Paypal, you needed an account. If you got an email from a HoTMa
by wallflower 15y ago
Hotmail and Paypal were two of the earliest and most famous viral products.
To redeem money in Paypal, you needed an account.
If you got an email from a HoTMaiL user, there was a viral auto inserted footer.
And, most important, for these two products, they didn't attempt to track your every click, plain web urls...
- guard-of-terra 15y agoI fail to understand how hotmail could be viral. To receive the message with "viral" footer, you had to already have a mailbox. If you did, why bother? Maybe it was viral in the sense that it was the first widespread webmail and thus was in demand?
- wallflower 15y agoYes, I remember paying for an email account that was POP3 based and part of my ISP monthly fee. I couldn't (easily) access it when away from my home machine because there was no web interface and most importantly - if I changed ISPs, I lost access to my old email address. It's easy for us to forget that permanent email addresses used to be prestige things. Hotmail with its simple tag line - get hotmail, free web based email was a pioneer. For me, it was my very first personal cloud based service. At a time when those who had email accounts had them through thick clients like Eudora. It was a big deal. I still retain my hotmail account for sentimental reasons.