I’m about to rant about our local cable internet provider, Shaw’s, mediocre email. Their hit-and-miss SPAM filters decided to block an email newsletter that I manage for a local retailer. I hate it when that happens. Shaw.ca email addresses are about 25% of the list, so when they block a message, I know. And it makes my numbers look bad.
When picking an email address, you have three general options:
Your own hosted email (maybe like the one at work?)
A free webmail provider such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail (actually, these are not strictly webmail, in particular Gmail offers excellent standards based access to your mailbox that you can use with any standard email application).
Your Internet Service Provider’s free email. Around here, the two big providers are Telus (ADSL) and Shaw (Cable). Of course, if you use our Ivy DSL service, we offer you ivydsl.com email addresses too.
What should you use?
I strongly recommend that you use a webmail provider. Especially Google’s Gmail.com. However, Microsoft’s Hotmail.com and Yahoo’s Mail are satisfactory too, certainly better than your ISP.
Why?
To your ISP, email is an expense. No one ever chooses between ADSL and Cable Internet because the email is “better”. Thus, the incentives are to put the least effort and expense into email services. As long as the service is passable… it doesn’t really matter.
To a webmail provider? Email is the product. Period. It has to be good, and it has to keep getting better to be competitive. The more people that use their service, the more advertising that they can sell.
The big webmail guys have 100’s of millions of email accounts. Your big ISP? I think Shaw and Telus each have less than 10 million accounts. Bigger is better when it comes to providing email. Your staff and equipment and processes get spread over more users. Providing good email boxes is complicated, thanks to the incredible volumes of SPAM.
Besides, some day you will change your ISP – unless of course you intend to stay with your ISP until the day you die. When you do change providers, you’ll have to also change your email address. That’s a lot of work. Choose a 3rd party email provider, and you won’t have to worry about that.
The proof is in the pudding. Most people don’t maintain an email address at major email providers for testing purposes. I do. The test shaw.ca email address is full of opt-in email newsletters that have been misfiled as SPAM. Including the occasional one that is managed by me.
There will probably be more posts regarding email newsletters, particularly ones in BC and Alberta. It’s something I deal with a lot, and it’s about time I share some tidbits.