Originally Posted By fkurucz So who are the "hot" email providers? Gmail, who snoops at your email to glean marketing data? Or is it someone else? As for "lowest common denominator", how so? Because of their clunky web based UI? As long as it delivers the email, who cares? And there's nothing stopping you from using Outlook or Thunderbird. And if it's a smartphone you use, I'm sure they offer pop and smtp interfaces. Sheesh, I know plenty of young pups who use yahoo for their email. I work in Tech and have never, ever heard of someone's resume being tossed because of the email provider.
Originally Posted By ecdc It's hard to define, but mawnck got to the heart of it, I think. Yahoo and AOL are so user unfriendly, it suggests that someone either doesn't use email enough to know that or they don't understand tech enough to know it. If you're a tech company, or even a company that relies on tech-savvy people, I suppose it's the equivalent of someone applying to work at Walt Disney Studios who only has a VCR. Sure, they can watch their movies that way, and maybe they don't really care about the quality, but it doesn't exactly scream "I'm a big movie fan who understands the industry."
Originally Posted By mawnck The most annoying thing about stereotypes is that that, in a lot of cases, they tend to be true. It's an application filtering mechanism that they can't bust 'em for. And of course you wouldn't have HEARD of it. It's not something they'd go around bragging about. Those "young pups" need a new provider. Or perhaps the Yahoo account is a throwaway they only give to employers and other troublesome people?
Originally Posted By ecdc Hmmm...at Verizon AOL and Yahoo mail were biiiig red flags for us. Not in hiring, but in tech support. 9 times out of 10, someone using Yahoo (and especially AOL) had a much harder time understanding and troubleshooting than, say, a Gmail user or iCloud user.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Over the years, I've used just about all the major providers either for personal or work email. Frankly, as long as they deliver and send email, I can access any bells and whistles elsewhere. The WORST IMO is Outlook. Crashes frequently, error messages halfway through an upload or download, and of course is the target of every virus and spam artist out there. I have to deal with it because it's what the IT consultants chose for my company, but frankly I'd rather deal with something that works better, "unhip" or not.
Originally Posted By fkurucz Don't most "young pups" use the email app on their smartphones as their primary email UI? So what difference would their email provider make in that case? I refuse to use GMail as a matter of principle. I don't want google bots reading my email to gather marketing info about me. As for hiring for tech support, wouldn't real technical skills be far more relevant than which email provider one uses. If this really is the criteria used for hiring tech support, then no wonder most tech support stinks.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >> The WORST IMO is Outlook. Crashes frequently, error messages halfway through an upload or download, and of course is the target of every virus and spam artist out there. I have to deal with it because it's what the IT consultants chose for my company, but frankly I'd rather deal with something that works better, "unhip" or not.<< You could use Thunderbird. It's open source and free and is a perfect replacement for Outlook. Plus it also works on Linux, Solaris, HP-UX and AIX. Of course, most of those "savvy" GMail users have never seen or touched a Linux/UNIX box (Mac and Droid don't count)
Originally Posted By ecdc >>So what difference would their email provider make in that case?<< Case in point: Yahoo doesn't allow POP3 access (or didn't, perhaps that's changed) on smartphones, only IMAP. They also have Yahoo Plus (now Yahoo Business, I think) that offered paid features that worked and played better on a lot of smartphones than Yahoo Classic. I'm not a Google guy, either. I don't have much of a dog in this fight. If someone uses Yahoo and it works and they're happy with it, good on 'em. I'm just saying my personal experience jives with what mawnck is saying: People with Yahoo or AOL tend to be less (often significantly less) tech savvy than others.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Yahoo and AOL are so user unfriendly, it suggests that someone either doesn't use email enough to know that or they don't understand tech enough to know it.<< I've never had an email account with either one, so now, out of curiosity, I'm going to open one with yahoo, just to see how bad it really is.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>I've never had an email account with either one, so now, out of curiosity, I'm going to open one with yahoo, just to see how bad it really is.<< How bad it really is is beside the point. Who, in the last 10 years, has opened a (real) email account on Yahoo or AOL? I think I closed my AOL account in 1998 or so.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <You could use Thunderbird. It's open source and free and is a perfect replacement for Outlook.> I'm forced to use Outlook at work. I suppose I could suggest Thunderbird the next time it comes up, but we spent all this time and trouble getting Outlook, so I doubt that'll happen.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <How bad it really is is beside the point. Who, in the last 10 years, has opened a (real) email account on Yahoo or AOL? I think I closed my AOL account in 1998 or so.> I think this is the problem. I have an aol account (among others), and there's not a thing wrong with it. And with some people, it's the address they know for me, so I keep it. Long ago they changed from "must log in to our little enclosed world" thing to a regular-webpage-log-in-get-your-mail-log-out thing. But since I'm guessing nearly all aol addresses are "legacies" (i.e. few if any new accounts), what it REALLY says to tech people, I think, is "old." Not necessarily "tech-naive" (there are plenty of old farts my age who know what they're doing), but "old" and therefore "must be" tech-naive. And I wish they'd all get off my lawn.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Not necessarily "tech-naive" (there are plenty of old farts my age who know what they're doing), but "old" and therefore "must be" tech-naive.<< I just created yahoo and GMail accounts. The GMail UI is a little slicker, but to be honest they seem to me more alike than different. I suppose that I could put my GMail address on my resume and that will give me more cred as an engineer than all of my real world accomplishments and patents. I do understand that in today's youth oriented tech culture that "over 30" == "over the hill", especially in start ups. Of course, if I could bamboozle them into thinking I'm young by using a GMail account, my cover would be blown anyway during the interview, and I still wouldn't get the job.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>And I wish they'd all get off my lawn.<< Isn't there an app for that? ;-)
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I like the email account provided to employees and retirees by the University of Minnesota. I imagine the "umn.edu" domain doesn't hurt a bit when it comes to job applications.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I just created yahoo and GMail accounts. "The GMail UI is a little slicker, but to be honest they seem to me more alike than different." Yeah, but with Gmail your Google account is integrated across multiple platforms with Chrome and apps like Google Contacts and Calendar. To me Google is kind of like a 21st century cloud version of what Microsoft was in the late 90s. And Yahoo is, well, pretty useless in comparison. They do have a pretty nice mobile weather app though.
Originally Posted By fkurucz I was speaking from an email perspective. While the integration of other google features might appeal to some, to me it's just inviting google to further invade my privacy. I realize that it's considered hip to bare it all online and throw privacy concerns to the wind, but that's something I prefer not to do.
Originally Posted By Mr X I get that, Kooroots. In fact, I was with you all the way until recently when I wrote a book - thus now I NEED to get my name out there, though it still makes me a little uncomfortable lol. But privacy arguments aside, these days people want their free junk to deliver bigtime, in a wide variety of ways, and for that Google (and their nemesis, Apple, or maybe it's vice-versa I dunno) delivers. So the savvy consumer would be using their products, generally speaking. Hate to break it to ya here on this public forum and all, but you're already violated anyway. Unless you get off the grid now and go live in a survivalist compound somewhere, all your info is already ripe for the picking (or, more likely, already picked clean and filed somewhere). I think we talked about this already though, I'm just being redundant—damn, now that's on MY permanent record!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "I realize that it's considered hip to bare it all online and throw privacy concerns to the wind, but that's something I prefer not to do." *shrugs* I understand where you're coming from, but like Mr. X said most, if not all, internet companies that rely on revenue from ad sales are collecting data that you may assume is private.
