AllThingsD » Brian Hall

Making Hotmail Hot Again Hot Again

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 01:07:27 +0000

Like it or not, your personal email address says something about you. Gmail tends to be considered the cool email to have today. Apple’s (AAPL) .Mac addresses (now .Me) identify users who own Macs and don’t mind paying $100 a year for email and related services. AOL (AOL) emails are tied to adults who haven’t changed their address since the dial-up days. And Hotmail is seen as old school.

[ See post to watch video ]

Since its debut in 1996, Hotmail has soared to 400 million users world-wide. But it also lost users along the way—particularly in 2008—due in part to a general perception that Hotmail wasn’t as modern as other email services.

Starting this week, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) will try to change the way Hotmail is perceived by rolling out a revamped version. The company, which bought the program in 1998, has scrapped its attempts to get people to use its site for social networking, acknowledging that companies like Facebook and Twitter are already doing the job. And it has cleaned up its once confusing nomenclature: Hotmail is the sole name for Microsoft’s Web email program.

To spread the word, Microsoft recently launched a massive marketing campaign, involving online, radio and outdoor ads running through the end of the year, that will cost the company tens of millions of dollars, according to Microsoft general manager, Brian Hall. Mr. Hall says that “The New Busy” campaign is intended to demonstrate how Hotmail’s organizational features help busy people with full lives. Part of the campaign will focus on reintroducing current Hotmail users to new features.

But should you really consider reviving your old Hotmail account or opening a new one? I’ve been using this new version of Hotmail for the past few weeks and I’ve found it handled large files with ease, performed browser-like tasks within the inbox and integrated third-party social networks and email accounts. Though the Hotmail name still conjures up frustrating memories of too much spam and the belief that storage was restricted, Microsoft has revamped its old email service into one that’s smart, robust and reliable. It deserves a second look.

The new Hotmail displays more on one screen, including photos.

Hotmail is still big on sorting emails according to your existing “Contacts” versus everyone else. This works well if you’ve taken the time to add all of your friends to the Contacts list, a procedure that takes a couple seconds per person and is done as you send emails to people. This prompting can be a bit of a pain, but if you haven’t done it, you might miss emails from people you care about. A Microsoft representative said that by the end of this summer, users will be able to opt out of this sorting.

At first glance, the new Hotmail doesn’t look dramatically different. But a closer look reveals intelligent organizational tools. Shortcut tabs at the top of the inbox display only messages from social networks (think of all those email notifications from Facebook and Twitter), pre-made email groups or contacts. Many other email programs only do this if users manually set up folders.

Another organizational tool is called Quick Views. It automatically sorts four types of emails into folders: Flagged, Photos, Office Docs and Shipping Updates. These categories come preset and cannot be customized.

Quick Views saved me from digging through my inbox for specific emails and from dragging certain emails into folders for saving. When I ordered gifts online for a friend’s wedding, the shipping notification emails from the delivery service arrived in my inbox and were also viewable in the Shipping Updates folder. Emails with attached Office documents were neatly sorted into the Office Docs folder.

Behind the scenes of the revamped Hotmail, Microsoft is powering all inboxes with Windows Live SkyDrive—an ever-growing, server-based storage repository that guarantees you’ll never be asked to clean out your inbox. (As with many Web-based email programs, Hotmail stores your emails on servers rather than taking up space on your hard drive.)

SkyDrive also gives Hotmail users more freedom when sharing photos: Images can be quickly uploaded to SkyDrive and shared with friends via a Web link. One message can include up to 200 photos of 50 megabytes each, or 10 gigabytes total. Meanwhile, Gmail limits attachments to about 25 megabytes per message.

When Word, PowerPoint or Excel documents are attached to any message received, they are opened right in the Web browser, without having to open another program. This works thanks to a program called Office Web Apps, which functions regardless of whether or not Office 2010 is installed on the computer. Just as photos are shared from Hotmail using a SkyDrive link, so, too, are Office documents.

Hotmail’s inbox now has a Sweep feature, which lets you move or delete all emails from a particular sender. (A similar option in Microsoft Office 2010 wipes out all emails sent prior to the last message in a thread.) Another option for tidying up your inbox is Conversation View, which sorts all emails sent in the same conversation into one group. Users can opt in or out of this, unlike Gmail, which offers only threaded emails.

Tough spam filters caught every Viagra-related email sent to my Hotmail address. And if you identify a piece of mail in the Junk folder that isn’t actually spam, Hotmail remembers this and sorts differently in the future.

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, now plays a role in Hotmail. It’s built into the search box as an option for scouring Web content directly from the inbox. It can be accessed while composing a message: A small “From Bing” drop-down menu in the email you’re writing lets you search for content to add to emails, like maps, videos, images and movie show times. This content appears in a right-side panel and can be embedded in email messages with one click.

To keep people from straying away to different Web pages while using Hotmail, Web functions can be performed from right within its inbox. These functions include watching videos from YouTube or Hulu, or viewing photos from Flickr or SmugMug. I clicked on YouTube links in emails and watched videos in a handsome overlay screen. And if an email includes codes for tracking packages using the U.S. Postal Service, the package’s real-time shipping status appears within the email. A Microsoft representative confirmed that FedEx and UPS are in the works.

I added my Gmail account to my Hotmail account, so I could check several personal email messages on the same Web page. In a similar manner, Hotmail can pull multiple contacts from several networks—like phone numbers and emails from LinkedIn or birthdays from Facebook—into a single Contact list.

Hotmail may have burned you in the past, but this beefed-up new version saves you time and is a pleasure to use.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg. Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Microsoft Officially Facebooks, Oops, Socializes, Windows Live Internet Services

Kara Swisher — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:00:15 +0000

Microsoft officially rolled out the next version of its Windows Live Services tonight, with a heavy emphasis on socializing its online offerings and giving users better tools to share all sorts of information from across the Web within them.

Microsoft (MSFT) said the changes–similar to those made by Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL recently–would “begin rolling out to customers in the U.S. over the coming weeks and will be made available globally in 54 countries and in 48 languages by early 2009.”

You might call its the “Facebooking” of Windows Live, which is the brand name for Microsoft’s communications and other related online services aimed at consumers, especially because the much anticipated changes also include a new profile and a “What’s New” feed.

So, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should feel beloved by Microsoft, since both are direct borrows of two of the social-networking site’s most prominent features.

(See many screenshots of the newly refreshed Window Live services below.)

But don’t call it a social network, said Brian Hall, who is the general manager of the Windows Live unit, in a lovely breakfast interview with BoomTown yesterday.

“No one wants to sign up for another social network,” said Hall. “But everyone does want to be able to share and bring together all they do on the Web, and we want to make sure all our users can do that in the easiest way possible.”

(Sadly, the video I did with Hall–who is Seth Rogen lookalike, and I mean that in a good way–got eaten up in my new Flip MinoHD software, which was entirely due to my boneheadedness.)

But, in it, Hall underscored that Microsoft is now fully committed to opening Windows Live Services up to whatever consumers want to do with their online lives and wherever they want to do it.

And, indeed, the “next generation” of Windows Live will inject social elements into its Photo Gallery photo sharing, Hotmail email, Spaces groups and Messenger instant messaging offerings, as well as Microsoft’s calendar and mobile products.

The move will also more significantly integrate many third-party partners into the mix. Microsoft’s outside partners announced tonight include Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp. (See the full list below.)

Microsoft also announced alliances with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and China Telecom to deliver Windows Live services.

Microsoft says there are more than 460 million Windows Live customers (its instant messaging offering accounts for a bulk of this number and will see the most socializing impact), but is bowing to the obvious and inevitable trend of consumers creating and sharing all over the Internet.

But, said Hall, Microsoft is also sticking to its mantra of “software plus services” here, noting that consumers want the existing tools they use now regularly to become more social, rather than having to abandon them.

Microsoft is also launching its Windows Live Essentials, which are free widgets that can be used across a range of devices and places, such as personal computers, mobile phones and on Web sites.

Finally, to let users store all that content and information, Microsoft said it is also increasing its Windows Live SkyDrive online storage offering from 5GB to 25GB.

Here are the screenshots of the new Windows Live services (click on them to make them larger):

Windows Live Home Page

Windows Live Profile Page

Windows Live Messenger Page

Windows Live Web Activities Page

Windows Live Groups Page

Partner Integration for Windows Live

Blog
Blogkoll.se
Live Journal
Overblog
SixApart
Twitter*
Wordpress*

Reviews
11870.com
Amazon
Digg
Flixster*
Goodreads
Kaboodle
StumbleUpon*
Yelp*

Photo
Bilddagboken.se
Flickr*
Photobucket
Rock You
SmugMug

Music/Video
Last.fm
iLike
Break
Pandora
Seesmic
Veoh

Social Networking
Biip.no
Dada.net
Daum*
Dopplr
Faves
Friendster
Hevre
Hyves
Jeeran
Libero Community
Lokalisten
Mail.ru
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Nettby
OleOle
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Qik
SlideShare
Studenti.it
TripIt, Inc.*
Yandex
YuKu
zoo.gr

OEM and Services Partners
HP
Lenovo

Telecommunications and Broadband Service Providers

China Telecom
Qwest

FrameIt Partners
Amlogic
iGala
Navteq
PanDigital
PhotoVu
RMI
Smartparts
ViewSonic

*Denotes First Set of Available Feed Partners

Microsoft's Project Granola–Facebook Tastier Than Yahoo?

Kara Swisher — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:02:15 +0000

Project Granola?

Apparently, that’s the jokey nickname that’s been given by some in the company to Microsoft’s (MSFT) new online strategy, in the wake of its failed efforts to acquire Yahoo (YHOO) that ended in a big heap of mess this past weekend.

Now, sources tell BoomTown, it is all about “organic”–hence the image of a healthy handful of granola (except for the fact that, in my experience, nobody really likes granola after eating it as much as they think will before).

In any case, it is a word Microsoft folks have been slipping into the conversations with BoomTown over the past few days, so much so that I have started to feel like I was talking to execs from Whole Foods.

Now Microsoft’s greenness has gone public.

Case in point: Brian Hall, Windows Live General Manager, who trotted out the organic word in front of Merrill Lynch analysts yesterday, as reported by CNET’s Ina Fried, saying: “We’ve withdrawn the offer and moved on, and now are focused on how we grow as fast as possible organically.”

But what does organic mean exactly?

Two things, it seems.

First, stepping up spending on marketing, technology and research to try to find ways to differentiate from Google (GOOG) and get into the No. 2 spot now held by Yahoo.

Of course, that plan has not worked out so well as yet for the software giant, with Microsoft spending billions of dollars with no profits and little gain in online search or ad market share, while its archrival Google keeps growing stronger.

Even so, while in Korea today, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates backed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s do-it-yourself path and his move to walk away from Yahoo.

“The key decisions on that will be made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who took a look at Yahoo and decided that, on our own, he likes the stuff that we’re doing,” said Gates.

Gates also added what amounts to the second option for Microsoft. “I wouldn’t rule out some partnerships, but we don’t have anything imminent there,” he said.

While a return to Yahoo is a possibility, in fact, buying up Web 2.0 stars is likely to be a bigger focus of the company.

“Yahoo can twist,” said one source. “Microsoft has lots and lots of other options.”

According to sources close to the company, for example, Microsoft’s bankers had been putting out subtle signals to Facebook to see if it would be open to a full buyout.

Microsoft already invested $240 million in the hot social-networking site, an investment that gave Facebook its kooky $15 billion valuation.

And its execs have long told Facebook execs they wouldn’t mind a bigger bite–um, like all of it.

“We just wanted to gauge their interest, more than any real effort,” said another source, who expects Facebook to stick to its longish path to an eventual IPO.

But, as is no secret, Microsoft has selections all over Silicon Valley to help it improve its Internet chances.

Those would include buying bigger vertical sites in strong categories like autos or jobs or finance, and also scooping up smaller but fast-growing socially oriented sites like Digg, Meebo, Yelp or focusing on ad plays like Spot Runner (which just got another big dollop of funding).

There might even be some sense in spinning some of these and all Microsoft Web units off into a separate Internet company, which would be another way of integrating even bigger deals for properties like Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL or News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace (which are longer shots, I think).

In a post I did in February right after Yahoo rebuffed Microsoft for the first time, I suggested such a course for the company.

As I wrote:

Here’s a list: LinkedIn. Digg. Flixster. Slide or RockYou. Veoh. WordPress. Sphere. Sugar. Some international stuff. And more.

Then, some noted, Microsoft would have to give massive financial incentives to those entrepreneurs to stay and thrive. Most importantly, it would have to keep its Redmond hands from interfering.

Now that would send shivers up the spine of Larry and Sergey.”

And that, most of all, would be more like icing on the cake for Microsoft and be much more tasty than a bowl full of granola.

And, as Martha Stewart says: It’s a good thing.