Rafe pointed me to this Washington Post piece about what your email provider says about you. They discuss the big ones (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and they mostly get the right tone, but they’re a bit off. But the reason I’m linking to this is because they didn’t discuss people who have their own domains.
Generally, I am going to put more faith in someone who has their own domain name (a little less faith if there is no site). Whatever the reason for having their domain, it shows they’ve put some thought into how they want to be identified by the world. They also recognize that their domain is more likely than Gmail to outlive them. They also know how to set up a wireless router and write poignant blog posts about email addresses.
12/08/10 12:01 PM
I agree with you on the @domain thing, BUT, I stayed with the @gmail address for so long, because the gmail interface was (and still is) lightyears ahead of all IMAP/POP clients. I guess my point would be, what does it say about someone who is willing to suffer through Mail, Entourage or (god forbid) SquirrelMail, just to have their vanity address?
Of course, nowadays, you can use your @domain address in gmail as a Reply-to, or just go full-out with Google Apps for domains, (my route). It’s the best of both worlds… if gmail goes *poof* tomorrow, I can take my address over to the Facebook Mail or whatever comes next.
12/08/10 12:59 PM
Yep, that's exactly what I do. I use my @capndesign email address and process everything in Gmail. It's a way better interface than any of the desktop apps I've used.