Goodbye Hotmail, hello Outlook. Microsoft announced yesterday that it’s changing the name of your favorite email service from 1996 from Hotmail to Outlook. In addition to the name change, the service is getting some new functions too. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn information can be integrated into your contacts, and you can reply and Like status updates from your inbox. You’ll be able to pull in pictures of your friends from social networks and add them to contacts as well. All Things D has a five-star review of Outlook.com and reports on more features:
… optional one-click scheduled cleanups of mail that delete all but the last message you got from someone; a safe, built-in way to unsubscribe from newsletters; and easy methods for creating email sorting rules for new and old messages. I cut the number of emails in my inbox in half after the first day of using Outlook.com.
CNET reports that a million people signed up to get an account in the first six hours. So if you were thinking it would be totally cool to get LadyGaGaFan@Outlook.com address, you’re probably out of luck (I’m looking at you LadyGaGaFan6318@gmail.com).
If you’re not willing to give up your current email account, Microsoft thinks it has you covered with a feature that lets you use Outlook.com while sending and receiving everything from another email address. In other words, you can keep your people can still send stuff to your Gmail account, but you can manage it through Outlook.
The new look and features are rolling out just in time to fan the fire under Windows 8, which is scheduled to be released on October 26.
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