So I’ve been testing out a few different email clients for some time now. Using Windows Live Hotmail since they’ve been beta testing for … probably about 10 months now. Using Yahoo Mail Beta for about 6 months. Granted I am not legitimately using these clients as ‘clean’ accounts but I am understanding the usability behind them. 
Windows Live Mail.
Destined for greatness? I think not. Main reasons:
- Customization is very low. I wanted to change the layout of my task pane of which there seemed to be no option to do, even though there is an option to move your ‘reader pane’. Themes consist of nine different colors, styles are not even a part of this. Another thing I wanted to customize was which pane came up when I logged in. The ‘Today!’ screen full of news and such comes up everytime I login, I would like to go directly to my mail please. Not only does the Today screen come up with news and such but I also have to wait for two huge ads to load [not really because my firewall and adblocker are FULLPROOF!- but the ads are there.]. I would also like to move around some of the buttons but that is not necessarily important.
- When filtering through the mail I was always accidentally clicking on a message when I merely wanted to check it. Which then opened up the message in the reading pane as well as un-checking all the previous items I had checked. There must be a better way to go about this.
I know this is very particular criticism but I think that it is important, and I’m sure the folks at MS will enjoy some comments as well. I did enjoy a couple things although nothing that will convince me to switch over from the all encompassing Google Mail.
- I enjoy that I can read a message while going through the rest of my mail items. This was accomplished by enlisting the help of a separate ‘Reading Pane’.
- MS upped the amount of space from my old 40MB to 2GB and included a search mail. [Kinda like Google]
- The ‘Automatically Sort Email into Folders’ option is very nice. You can include an sender address and key words which will then direct mail into your specified folders.
Yahoo! Mail Beta is not very impressive either. Although, as of now most of the options need to be accessed through the classic Yahoo! Mail because well, this one is a beta. At least nothing which will make me jump to that client. I might add that I do not think the point of new clients is to attract totally new customers but to satisfy their current usership and hopefully they will spread the word to those who have not joined the E-Revolution. [Customer satisfaction coupled with WOM]
- There are too many buttons. I am getting lost trying to write a simple message! Solution? Possibly a quick-post feature that many blogs have adopted.
- Five ADS!!! They are small, but I see them– err, rather see where they are supposed to be.
- Initial loading time seems to be so much longer than MSLive or Gmail. Maybe because of all the buttons.
The good?
- Again, the reader pane. I really like reading email and going through it at the same time.
- You can flag messages. Nice for those periods of 100+ messages.
- Integrates your life! On top of email, they’ve included a calendar of events, search, RSS feeds, contact management.
[Inventive splash screen!]
I thought that this "multi-variate" testing layout which AdWords is based on is very similar to how television researchers discover which elements of their shows appeal to their target audience. For example, the creators of Sesame Street spent a lot of time optimizing the television show for viewing by young children. They discovered, through testing combinations of elements within and without their show, that children responded positively to the puppet characters interacting with humans on the show. 
All social networking sites, of different types naturally. I, personally, don’t have any need for this many different social networks. My uses of SNsites are primarily: business, music, and college. I assign one site to each of my uses. The reason I do this is because I feel that a site which focuses on a particular niche is much better at informing me of what I want to know in that niche. It is never good in any situation for one to spread themselves over many networks, in effect thinning their usability.
I wonder, How many people are willing to switch their networks? It is similar to getting a haircut, generally once you find someone who takes good care of your hair you stick with them. My 4 SNsites take good care of my social networking needs and I will stick with them. There are those sites however which have taken a seat on the back burner to make way for the mainstreamers MySpace and Facebook. These back burner sites, LiveJournal- Xanga-, were beginners in the social networking realm but were put away because of a younger generation of users’ grapple of new media. What is it about MySpace and Facebook that were so revolutionary? EASY! Their platform integrated ways to display and SHARE information.