May 31, 2010  •  In Personal, Web

What Your Email Address Says About You

Remember when Gmail was invite-only? I remember getting overly excited for J when he became the first person I knew in real life to get a Gmail invite (only a couple of days after the service launched!), and feeling a strange sense of accomplishment when he was finally able to invite others and gladly presented his then-girlfriend (ME!) with the first.

In the six years since Gmail first launched, it has become THE email provider of choice among my friends. I have long since deactivated my Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo accounts, and when I first bought this domain two years ago I began using Google Apps (which uses a more secure and stable version of Gmail) to manage my @geekinheels.com email along with the few other Gmail accounts I own.

So according to the chart below, I’m pretty computer-literate, as I only use my own domain and Gmail.

Having used all the email providers in the chart, I can honestly say that Gmail is the most efficient, intuitive, and easy-to-use email service on the market. I would say that about 95% of the people I know (including my parents, who are practically computer-illiterate) use Gmail.

I do have a friend who still uses her @aol.com email as her primary email account, and whenever people ask for her email address she has to launch into an explanation into why she still chooses to use AOL.

Is your primary email NOT Gmail? Why do you prefer to use this email provider over Gmail?

[Chart via The Oatmeal.]

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44 Responses to “What Your Email Address Says About You”

  1. Rena says:

    I have my own domain and a gmail, use the own domain waaaay more. It’s for family biz and I’ve had mine since before I could really use it (5, 6ish?)

    Both go through gmail though, which I enjoy. As fun as thunderbird was I’m happy to not go back

  2. Spencer Littlejohn says:

    This is not true for me. I use Yahoo Mail for texting and interaction with Multiple chat services. Plus I like unlimited storage.

  3. MR says:

    funny and true. My hotmail, yahoo and aol are so old that they were actually just my initials.. But, all those are now over powered by spam/junk. So I back-up gmail as the superior. 🙂

  4. Jo says:

    I’m with Katie. My AOL emails have been around for 15 years and I see no reason to go through the hassle of changing my contacts around the web. I’m not as computer savvy as she is, but I have my own site for which I write the code (from scratch), and am usually the one at work people come to for computer help.

  5. Actually, I *do* use my own email. Well, the one that my web host provides. Before that I was hosting the email myself. I don’t really trust Google, and I prefer to have my email ultimately downloaded to my own computer.

  6. daisy says:

    hahaha – I hate gmail. I use yahoo for EVERYTHING!! I own a domain – have email at this domain – have a masters in digital communication and math is my FAVORITE subject (because I’m great at it of course!) – and I STILL hate gmail. I tell everyone to switch to yahoo. I’m extremely surprised that you like it.

  7. Geek in Heels says:

    @daisy — Why exactly do you hate gmail?

  8. Rick says:

    I have my own domain and Gmail, but actually prefer Live.com (Hotmail) because it's more secure (it can SMS me a temp password when I'm on a public network — my first Gmail account got keylogged), can send up to 10 gig per email (via SkyDrive, not by actually attaching giant files and forcing recipients to download them, which is what Gmail does by default),and has the best video chat client — that is, the one that works best when chatting between the US and most of Asia, where I've worked and have extended family.

    I know there's a hipness factor with addresses… I just don't care anymore. Maybe that, in itself, defines me as "old." 🙂

  9. Rick says:

    p.s. My 67 year-old mother has her own domain name. She is not tech savvy. Any foo' can do that, today. 🙂

  10. Dawn says:

    I prefer my @owndomain email because I can run it through Mail or Outlook or whatever program has the best features at the time.

    I also have Gmail and especially love it for video chat, integration with Google Voice, and the access to new beta features to try.

    Right now developers can apply to try out Google Storage!! Sky Drive doesn’t let you store file sizes that are very big, so it doesn’t help me share videos, etc.; even DropBox let’s you share larger individual files.

    I read my Gmail and my branded email together on my Mail program–best of both worlds.

  11. Natalie says:

    i use outlook but my domain is @live so what am i?

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