Remember when Gmail was invite-only? I remember getting overly excited for J when he became the first person I knew in real life to get a Gmail invite (only a couple of days after the service launched!), and feeling a strange sense of accomplishment when he was finally able to invite others and gladly presented his then-girlfriend (ME!) with the first.
In the six years since Gmail first launched, it has become THE email provider of choice among my friends. I have long since deactivated my Hotmail, MSN, and Yahoo accounts, and when I first bought this domain two years ago I began using Google Apps (which uses a more secure and stable version of Gmail) to manage my @geekinheels.com email along with the few other Gmail accounts I own.
So according to the chart below, I’m pretty computer-literate, as I only use my own domain and Gmail. 
Having used all the email providers in the chart, I can honestly say that Gmail is the most efficient, intuitive, and easy-to-use email service on the market. I would say that about 95% of the people I know (including my parents, who are practically computer-illiterate) use Gmail.
I do have a friend who still uses her @aol.com email as her primary email account, and whenever people ask for her email address she has to launch into an explanation into why she still chooses to use AOL.
Is your primary email NOT Gmail? Why do you prefer to use this email provider over Gmail?
[Chart via The Oatmeal.]
I like books, gadgets, spicy food, and art. I dislike shopping, hot weather, and the laws of entropy. Although I am a self-proclaimed computer nerd, I still have a love for handbags and makeup... and I am always teetering on high heels. To learn more about me, visit the 
that was a really g33k elitist chart.. but sort of true 🙂
*pats self on back*
I’m a gmail early adaptor and abandoned my @owndomain email because gmail has a better interface. MY dad still uses AOL and TOTALY fits the steriotype, though he’s caught on to forwarding emails and sending me links (from the "send this page to someone else" buttons), he still prints out emails and puts them on the fridge at home. oh well, I don’t think my dad will ever be a gmail guy, but at least he’s started using Mail instead of AOL to check his emails.
I’m not sure if you know this but you can set up your own domain name with Gmail (Google Apps). You probably know this now but just wanted to let you know.
I use a gmail account to correspond with friends and family, but I’ve recently started to rely more heavily on my yahoo account. This is because my gmail account has my first name + husband’s last name, whereas my yahoo account is my first name + maiden last name and therefore more appropriate for professional/ networking use since I never legally changed my name. Yahoo has upgraded a lot of their interface and they now have new features that I REALLY like, such as the ability to open multiple emails or email searches as tabbed windows within the yahoo screen. On the other hand, if I search for something in gmail, I can only open one email at a time and I have to click "back to search results" between each individual email. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that!
This post also reminded me of a recent pulse that John (Mr. Bee) wrote about how he thinks it’s obnoxious when Harvard grads give out their alumni email addresses. I actually give out my alum.mit.edu address on both my resume and my business card and I certainly hope it’s not perceived as douchey or obnoxious to do so. In fact, my alum account has email forwarding for life so if you email it 50 years from now, it should still reach me even if yahoo and gmail are defunct then. If I give you my alum email, it likely means you’re important to me and I want you to be able to keep in touch.
I got my harvard.edu email address recently and I’ve been viewing it as an email to use when I need to be pretentious or impress someone, but I don’t think I’ll keep using it too long after I graduate. It is something to be proud of, but my first thought when I see adults who still use their .edu address, even if it’s a good school, is ‘what have they done since then?’ I use gmail (myfirstname.mylastname@gmail.com) for most things and the email I got when I was seven (myfirstname@mydadswebsite.com) for stuff that needs authentication, but that I don’t really want to hear from again, although some people still use it even though I haven’t actually given it to a person for years.
@Sherry — I can see why John might think that, and sadly there ARE people who just throw around the name of their schools to brag (ie, Andy from "The Office"). However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with anyone who chooses to keep their .edu emails, especially if it’s from a prestigious university; they can be particularly helpful for professional and/or networking purposes. I know plenty of people who do that and I don’t find it strange at all — I think you should be proud of the school you’ve attended if it comes with that level of prestige!
I love gmail so much that I forward my @jennacole.com email address to it so I can use the gmail interface.
I don’t get why anyone is still using Hotmail. I was interested to hear why the commenter above uses Yahoo. Sounds like some cool features they’ve implemented!
Like Sherry, I like my yahoo address, but the main reason I use it is because I’ve had it so long. I also got a gmail address a while ago, and got a second one when I changed my name. I have to say I like both the yahoo and the gmail. It’s hard for me to give up an andress that a lot of old friends have because I don’t want to forward everything and I’m not geek enough to find another solution!
My husband uses an old aol account. Not only is it an old account, but it has his 1996 screen name. I want him to upgrade, for some of the reasons here, but as he mostly uses his work email, it’s not a big deal.
I have a gmail but both my domain names are hosted using Google Apps… which is AMAZING. So ya, I have like a gazillion emails, but all are google managed
Gmail is so much better than anything out there, it is hard to compare. There is Gmail, then there is everything else…
Even though I have a personal Gmail account (which I use occasionally), and use Gmail for work (my non-profit org has its own Google Apps acct) I’m sticking with Yahoo as my primary address for a few reasons: the spam filter is great, the multi-tab interface mentioned above works well, I happen to like folders (though I totally get the appeal of labels and Gmail’s other organizing features), plus I’ve had that address for about 12 years now and like the continuity. I pay a small yearly fee for Yahoo Mail Plus, which eliminates ads and increases storage, among other benefits. And the final decision-maker? My Gmail address book got hacked a month ago and spam was sent from "me" to everyone I know. (How embarrassed was I when my 70-yr-old mother asked why I was sending Viagra ads to her and my father??) That’s NEVER happened with my Yahoo account.
While the Oatmeal chart is amusing, I think it’s wrong about Yahoo users. I’ve thought about switching to Gmail for years, but Yahoo works so well, I can’t justify it.
You forgot the ones who use @riseup.net; I have some friends like that, they’re gender-queer and anarchist, I adore them.
I use my hotmail account when I talk to Skynet (register for accounts on HuffPo, troll on Reddit…) and gmail for members of the resistance. Wait… is it after April 11 2011 on this account?
I use Apples MobileMe service, because 1. I got it for free, 2. the sync services that I can use between my iPhone and Mac are awesome. 3. the iDisk, I know I could use something like google apps along with dropbox or sugarsync, but it’s not as nice to look at or as easy to use because it’s extra app’s to download and use which = clutter. I’m an IT technician who works with Microsoft and Linux daily, but at home I use a Mac simply because it’s so more intuitive for me and I can do what I want and not have to worry about this problem or that, the way it syncs with the MobileMe services is excellent.
That was a nice one, but if I have a combo of 2 or more then what will that make me? Hmm I wonder!
I tried Gmail a while back, but got a bunch of spam in Portuguese. Seriously. So I went back to my ISP domain.
I use hotmail as my primary – mainly for MSN, I’ve had the addy since I was 15 – Survived through all the waves of spam when they used to fill up your inbox and you had to empty it or you would stop receiving mail, – but I use Gmail for all my geeky stuff.
I have 8 email accounts: 3 yahoo accounts for people / sites I don’t know, don’t trust, or don’t like; 2 gmail accounts, one for smartphone transactions, one for one business ID and one for a fan ID; 2 accounts with my ISP, one for my consulting business and one for personal emails. Gmail is OK so long as you access it POP3, but its online site totally sucks as far as privacy and email management concerns.
You forgoT the almighty @isp.com addresses. Why would anyone want to tie theiR email services to an isp domain? It’s bAd enough When a residential consumer uses one, but I cringe every time I see a business that uses it. It just says to me that emaiL is an afterthought. I like people and businesses that pay attention to detaiL.
I use several e-mails for different purposes. I have 2 @mydomain e-mails and a hotmail account to which I tend to default for other stuff (like communicating with family members). I use Thunderbird for all those accounts so it’s the same experience, generally. I really dislike web based e-mail, for the most part.. I actually signed up with Gmail the day it came about but I never found the interface to be easy to efficient to use. It’s honestly a little perplexing when others say they like it. I wonder if they’re using the same thing.
I still use hotmail (or livemail, pick your poison when it comes to the semi recent rebranding nonsense) for one simple reason – when I used google mail’s filter it loved to trap legitimate emails. And no, I’m not adding companies to my address book for the purpose of ordering things once or twice a year at most. Hotmail exhibits this behavior far less in my experience – I’d rather let the occasional piece of junk slip through and use common sense to recognize and delete them than have to check my trash every day in case something legit’s in there. Kinda defeats the point of having a junk mail section at all, wouldn’t you say?
Also, pro tip – most users pick the service that works for them, it doesn’t necessarily mean they belong to a particular "class" of user.
I still use my AOL mail (which I have had since high school or earlier) because I don’t want to change it. I use a gmail account for some things, but I find it bulky and not intuitive. I don’t actually use the AOL website or program, though. I use Outlook or my iPod to access my email 100% of the time.
I used to have Juno before aol, and only changed when it became pay or sit through ads.
I am not someone who prints emails… I am the one people come to when they need help. I taught computer classes and worked as the technology specialist at the public library for three years before becoming a teacher in the public school system.
So, sometimes it’s true your email says a lot, but to me it says I am lazy and it still works for me, so I don’t mess with it.
and what about an @well.com address?
I use hotmail and gmail. Gmail is the ult for personal correspondance but hotmail gets all my registrations and business type stuff.
Almost everyone I know who still uses yahoo has had their account hacked in the last few months. I send everything from a hotmail account directly to SPAM, getting close to doing that with yahoo as well. Only know one idiot who still uses aol, luckily they don’t email me. My SO uses own domain through gmail. I use my own domain as I have for over a decade. I don’t like gmail, actually.
You should add a section for the part BEFORE the @ sign…
first.last@gmail means ur awesome
I run my own domain complete with mail and web services. Main reason is that I control the precise level of spam detection/rejection and know that I’ve got virus filtering on my mail at the server level (where it should be).
I run my own email server on my own domain. I consider it to be too important to hand off the controls to anyone else, especially a free service where any demands I may have go ignored.
I agree that gmail is the best in the market, and I have been using gmail since 2003, having tried to use both hotmail and yahoo as my main email account.
However, I do find a big issue with gmail which is annoying. Suppose you have 4,000 emails in the account, and you want to search one email which you can neither remember the sender’s name nor any keywords but only know about the time when it was sent (say, summer 2006), there is no way I can jump to emails around that time. Instead I have to painfully press the "previous" over and over again until I reach those pages. Hotmail for example, lays out page 1,2,3…. etc so that you can guess to jump to the desired pages.
Have you got the same problem, or is there actually an easy solution which I have missed?
@Steve — You CAN filter Gmail by date. Just type "after:YYYY/MM/DD" and/or "before:YYYY/MM/DD" into the search box and voila!
I still use hotmail because I’ve had it for a decade and just don’t see a good reason to change it. A lot of people have gotten to know that as my email address over that time and I’ve never come across a feature of gmail that offsets the hassle of either forwarding my hotmail (MSN charges for auto forwarding) or trying to notify all those people of a new address. I have a gmail account and it’s nice, I guess, but in the end email is a simple enough thing that any number of providers can give me what I want out of it without changing my address every four or five years to whoever is currently "the best."
+1
I too have had my hotmail account forever. I’ve had the same house number since I got a phone, I’ve had the same cell phone number since I got a cell phone, and I’ve had the same email since I opened my hotmail account. I’ve never had a problem with it. Of course I have emails for all “major” providers, to see how they work. I feel hotmail gets a bad rep, I am sure from people that left it and haven’t used it in about a decade.
one big mistake on the cartoon: the aol user should have said "backslash backslash." because if somebody told you its the name of a character and it sounds fancier than what you knew before, then it’s always the correct option.