Which emailproviders will survive?
 

I've tested Gmail.com

I have tried now yahoo.co.uk, yahoo.ca, yahoo.se and yahoo.com and the sad things about yahoo.com is don't have features that the country specific one have.

But would they have enough money to survive?

I've also tested Lycos Europe and Lycos international? But they direct us to the local variety when we log in so I use spray.se which is the local variety.

AOL I've tested too.

Fastmail

Bluebottle and many others.

who would have enough resources to stay in biz? who seem to having trouble?

Here in Sweden Spray.se seems to have traouble getting enough advertizers to teir portal. Not sure if they have enough income from us accountholder their ADSL and Internet through DialUp or Webhotel Hosting

Does any of you have insight in these things? do all we have is wildguesses?

It is unfortunate that the rich owner of MSN has such akward service. I don't even want to use it.

Trew

Yahoo and Gmail are HUGE compared to Bluebottle and Fastmail. You won't have to worry about their survival. They may change their terms of service but they'll be there or else the internet as we know it is in trouble. I wouldn't be concerned at all about Fastmail and Bluebottle's survival although at some point they might be bought out by a larger company if their "product" is deemed attractive enough.

Innovation versus the existing bank business model.
 

We are in for the long haul. We are a small part of cyberspace (now) in every sense of the word, small url, small customer base. ;) the future will be very different.

Gig this Gig that, are they not all similar to the bank business model. How many banks could actually process let alone fund the withdrawl all of the money deposited by its customer base.

If everyone registerd @ gmail filled their accounts to 2gb on the same day, would it work? a question for their tech dept.

Fastmail, bluebottle and the smaller business?

The so called smaller operation has much more chance of being innovative and successful. Delivering new services and new solutions. As long as their business plan is not trying to emulate their gigantic counter parts, they will find markets.

Combine steady growth rates, service innovation and future joint ventures by the so called smaller companies and your looking I believe @ the future of the web.

Regards
nufm:)

Re: Which emailproviders will survive?
 

Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Lycos Mail, AOL, and Hotmail are all just one of many different services offered by their respective corporate owners. They'll all continue to exist so long as they benefit the companies that run them, and they all should be able to justify their continuing existence in the event that something happens to their parents. Google, Yahoo!, Lycos (UK), AOL, and Microsoft are all actively developing their email services, which is generally a positive indicator. :)

Re: Innovation versus the existing bank business model.
 

They're no doubt trying to find that out, or at least something along those lines, which may be one reason why it's a little harder to delete things in Gmail than in most accounts :D

I'm certainly no expert but I think the smaller providers will be around--some may fall by the wayside but there'll always be a market for an alternative to the mass-providers.

Re: Re: Innovation versus the existing bank business model.
 

Search engine + high quality easy to parse human edited content from email! I have read articles that say our private mail is destined for future search engines.

Which is why I conduct tests only from gmail;)

Trew: If you are looking for a service that is unlikely to change, due to the success or failure of any particular business model, look to a not for profit company.

I have had an email account at my local freenet since 1994. It costs me about $25 Canadian a year + any extra money I want to give (it's free for people who cannot afford it) They give me access to Pine email client only, but it is rock solid and it works (always) --- This is text only (no pictures) They offer PPP (conventional dial up) access as well at regular rates.

I get dial in service via a shell (or I can connect by telnet) and get access to Lynx (a text only web browser) + a bunch of newsgroups and other local services.

Big business only care about making a profit (even if they offer free email) don't make the mistake of being bedazzled by them -- take a look at what your local community has to offer :)

You might mind a few links here.

http://victoria.tc.ca/Resources/freenets.html#Sweden

Also try a Google search for Freenets (in your local community) Look for ones that have been around for at least six or seven years.

I have just noticed that the USA has by far the most number of Freenets. I wonder if anyone here uses them :)

Because I know everyone is on the edge of their seats, I can be assured that BurntMail we'll be here for a good long time.

Now that you’re all relieved, I can disseminate info relating to features!!

We have a dedicated user base and the ability to support thousands of users.
5 automated & 3 manually maintained anti-spam filters, not including TMDA!
Constantly adding features like Stats! Users can now see a 3 month history of Mail/Spam/Viri. WoW!

The deal is that independent providers will be here until they are bought out or the industry changes in some unforeseeable way and they don’t happen to have the resources to follow.

Otherwise there is always someone willing to pay a little not to see ads, and to get more personalized service.

this reply is for my self :D .

my email with my domain, control is in my hand.

I think I know what you mean, and I think I agree...

Another reason to use Pobox.com?

Another reason to use any email service provider that lets you use your own domain. :)

Re: Re: Re: Innovation versus the existing bank business model.
 

That's an interesting observation, and points out the fact that a lot of people still have a deep-seated suspicion of Gmail, justified or not. I find myself asking what their motives are: why did they offer 1GB mailboxes in the first place? Why is it harder to delete messages there than at other services? When I POP a Gmail account by whatever method, and elect to "delete messages from server", why are they not completely deleted? I like Gmail overall and I'm not totally paranoid, but sometimes it makes you wonder.

A service that might be in trouble if they don't change their offerings is MailSnare. I think it's a high-quality service (I used a trial account a while back), but their price to features ratio just doesn't seem to compare with most of the other subscription services.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Innovation versus the existing bank business model.
 

Hello -

We are always interested in hearing what features people think are missing from our service -- we believe we compare far above that vast majority of e-mail services when it comes to core features and there are none that we know of that come close to the breadth of anti-spam capabilities (e.g., TMDA, SpamAssassin, Greylisting, Regional Filters, individual statistics, etc.) we offer.

Cheers!
Mark

P.S. We're coming up on our 4-year anniversary in a few months :)

Mailsnare is very good I too have used their trial account but one thing is lacking and that is space. This has put me off purchasing an account.

Too late now, I am extremely happy with Promptpost personal, Tuffmail my website and Fastmail work related. I use Runbox purely to back everythging up.

It took me ages to get this combination right and I would not change it now. This combination is highly reliable and works brilliantly for me.

But Mailsnare definitely needs to offer more space.

Helen :D :D