As of July 31st, news is just spreading that Microsoft is reinventing hotmail (CNN). Basically, you can keep your hotmail if you’ve got one, but if you want a new account, it will have to be at live.com, or outlook.com. Better yet, you can integrate all your other hotmail, yahoo, gmail and several other types of accounts with this new one! Now, Live has been around for a while, but Outlook is pretty new, which means LOTS of awesome names are available! So if you’ve got a slightly awkward online email, like Superman13245, cause someone took Superman, and a whole bunch of other Superman + a number, go to Outlook.com now (logged out of your hotmail), and sign up for that clean email you’ve always wanted, to see if it is still available!

Is Outlook practical?

Overall, I would say a definite “yes”. Sure, the interface may be a bit different from what you’re used to. However, you’ll adapt. It’s not quite like the Microsoft Outlook, or Outlook Express, you know of if you have been using either. But you’ll adapt. Outlook.com is actually targeted at Gmail users so usage wise, it should be at least competitive in its abilities, including social media integration. But think of how nice it would be if you didn’t have to spit out a mouthful, and force others to remember some cryptic or partially cryptic, email address cause you couldn’t get the clean name on its own that someone beat you to!

There’s not a lot of point to me giving a technical overview among the major services because I’m not here to review and compare. You’re probably not going to notice a lot of difference between Outlook and Gmail unless you really need to be a true power user of the account. But that possibility for a clean email name, and one that you could identify with strongly, is a really nice thing to have. Trust me. I know. I have several!

So go forth and BRAND THYSELF!