The impressive popularity of Hotmail, which in December passed 30 million subscribers at a growth rate averaging 1 million a month, raises some significant points regarding e-mail, personal services and the Web.
If you’re unfamiliar with Hotmail, there are a couple of things you need to know. It’s a Web-based e-mail system (at www.hotmail.com). And it’s free– but you need Internet access to use it.
What’s the draw? Anyone who has ever gone on the road knows the problem of dealing with your e-mail account. If you ignore it the whole time you’re gone, you not only stand the chance of missing something extremely important, you have to deal with what can be hundreds of messages when you get back.
With Hotmail, you can access your e-mail from anywhere on the Web. If you’re visiting relatives in Saginaw or stumble across an Internet cafe in Nepal, you can receive and send e-mail.
If the only time you use e-mail is when you’re on the Web, Hotmail can serve perfectly well as your only e-mail system. Most people I know with accounts use it as a supplement to their regular mail. Another advantage to Hotmail is that your e-mail address will never change, even if you change jobs or Internet access providers.
You can switch messages from your work or home Internet account to Hotmail, for retrieval via the Web. This is a real godsend for travelers and mobile professionals. It also works well for people with only occasional e-mail needs.
The real lesson of Hotmail transcends e-mail, however. Its popularity indicates that there is a vast audience of Internet users hungry for Web-based services.
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How hungry? Consider this: Compared with typical e-mail software, such as Eudora, Netscape Messenger or Microsoft Outlook Express (or Outlook), Hotmail is a pretty dumbed-down piece of software. It’s simple to learn and use, yes. For that we can be thankful.
But when it comes to high-volume use or flexibility in organization and storage, Hotmail’s weaknesses really start to grate. Its interface is clunky and awkward. It has limited search capability. It lacks split-screen display. And in return for getting it free, users are subjected to distracting ads and screen clutter.
In other words, if Hotmail were the only mail system available, high-volume users would get frustrated real fast.
Yet they are more than willing to put up with Hotmail’s deficiencies in return for what they get back when they need it: mobility and convenience.
What this says is that users will flock to other personal services over the Web. Think about sitting down in an Internet cafe in South Africa and have it be like sitting in front of your home computer. Access your business contacts. Your calendar. Documents. Graphics. Files. Records. Databases.
Add to that the kinds of services that are jumping aboard the Web. Things like ordering pizza, getting a cab, reserving theater tickets, buying groceries. A lot of interaction formerly limited to the telephone is making the transition to the Web-based service arena.
Security issues need to be addressed to build confidence in such a system. Security concerns have not stopped Hotmail. But it is doubtful much real business mail gets conducted through Hotmail accounts.
Technologically, hurdles also exist. But rampant demand has a way of solving technological obstacles.
Finally, Web-based e-mail itself should become more robust. There ought to be a way of merging the power and capabilities of something like Outlook with the convenience and flexibility of Hotmail.
For now, Hotmail has tapped into market demand that few people would have guessed existed.