After being asleep at the wheel for what seemed like ages Microsoft has decided to radically overhaul the “most successful email service in the world”. Hotmail is now 16 years old (having launched in 1996) and has an installed customer base of 325mm users globally. This user base can be compared to Gmail which has 298.2mm users and Yahoo which has 298mm users. However, the service has fallen behind when it comes to feature set, e.g., social integration, labels, filters and streamlined user experience.
With its recent announcement of a reboot, Microsoft is looking to close the gap on these feature sets while using the brand equity and ubiquity that they’ve created with the Outlook product (Yea, they've been loading Outlook on your computer for "free" for just that reason ;-)
"Outlook" is expected to be a significantly cleaner experience boasting a less cluttered UI that will enable customers to get straight to their mail with large icons and commands that are contextually relevant instead of ever present.
The new service will have deep links into social media using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter connections to import their photo profiles (so that all of your contacts have pictures) as well as the latest social "information" on them.
In addition, Microsoft will be integrating aspects of its Skype service for video conferencing features as well.
Marketers may not like the new Outlook. The new service will automatically detect and label newsletters and promotional offers from stores. In addition, Outlook will make available a "Universal Unsubscribe" button that will unsubscribe you from the retail as well as ensure that any future materials from the retailer be ignored. Given what we've learned in class the benefit to this approach is that there will be less mail marked as "Spam" and any mail that does get delivered has a higher likelihood of the customer interacting with it since its a "wanted" message. The downside to this approach is that customers might just start unsubscribing to things left and right and then if the marketer fails to process the Outlook unsubscribe message then they might be in the dog house with the service or worse yet the customer.
The service is scheduled to go live over the next few months, with invitations to existing Hotmail users going out gradually to test the new service. There is not yet a hard deadline to transition to the new service.
For more information check out:
CNN Money's Coverage of Hotmail to --->Outlook
4 comments:
Although hotmail has 298.2mm users, there is a big difference between high quality and low quality users just as there is a big difference between high quality and low quality sites to advertise. I for example, have a hotmail account that I use as my junk email account. Therefore, anytime some internet site wants my email address in order to access something like a free trial... I put my hotmail account. Today, I checked my hotmail account and there were 4907 new messages, most of which are advertisements. Using gmail, I check all my emails. If I sign up to a coupon site like living social, I will actually look at the coupon. I think Microsoft is realizing a few things. If you are second or third in this field, you start to be considered the 'junk email account' and that having a cleaner email site plus allowing customers to opt-in is the key to much better experiences for both advertisers and consumers. Outlook is one of the cleanest services around but then again it is harder to sign up for things like living social because typically, outlook is the 'work email address'. I'd be interested to see how this works out for them.
In addition to Charlie's thoughts on Hotmail vs. Gmail vs. Yahoo and being first vs. third to market an email service, I also want to add that the article does not discuss the demographics of the users within each company's email lists. I would guess that Google's users are younger, more technologically savvy, more connected socially online, more active in how they manage their online experiences, as Charlie demonstrated with how he uses Google vs. Hotmail. Something that also goes along with this is "status symbol." It is "cooler" to have a Gmail account vs. Hotmail, so I tend to think of Hotmail and AOL users as older and out of touch with the times if I see that email address.
I agree with Kate's comment, gmail is definately used by more younger and tech savvy crowds. Also gmail has a much better user interface and the built in intelligance features are way better than hotmail. Globally people are embracing gmail and the growth of gmail users has been exponential.
Hotmail definately needs to revamp its user interface and create intelligence features that links a users hotmail account to a users bing sarches. Even with all the investment in hotmail, it will probably be very hard to catch up and win market share from gmail.
...Unless the new Hotmail/Outlook service is so incredibly cool and groundbreaking that all of us who have hotmail accounts as our junk/marketing mail account (me too!) slowly start shifting our usage and focus over to this account. I'm willing to bet many of us "younger" users have a hotmail account. The barrier to entry is not a factor. We're all checking this account daily or weekly. If the user experience is very pleasant, I can see myself using this account more frequently. If hotmail integrates facebook, linkedin, twitter, etc and gmail doesn't since they're stuck on pushing google+, this could shift usage to hotmail.
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