The Launch of Insignificance
If you’ve always yearned to have an e-mail address with the word “rocket” in it, today is your lucky day.
Yahoo has announced it’s adding two new domains to its Yahoo Mail service: ymail.com and rocketmail.com. Rocketmail, as you may remember, was the original service from which Yahoo Mail was born in the late 90s. Reports indicate it might have sounded slightly cooler back then.
“Hey, rockets are really rad, right? Let’s name our service Rocketmail — you know, like a rocket, but with mail,” we imagine its creators must have said at some point.
As for Ymail, the similarity between its name and that of another popular web-based e-mail service is completely coincidental, we’re sure. Gmail, while still smaller in overall account totals, is growing at a much faster pace month-to-month than Yahoo’s mail service.
But having the domain name rocketmail.com will change all that. Really.
Here’s hoping Yahoo’s headquarters at least blasted some Def Leppard when the new domain went live.
The Def Leppard quip made me laugh. Niiiiice.
I think I had Rocketmail years ago!! Anyway, Yahoo Mail is terrible at keeping spam away from mailboxes. Hotmail is even worse! Gmail is going to take the lead in mail service very soon.
Hello Raphael,
Rocket Mail was a postal service used for the first time in early 30’s and was still used until late 80’s.
See http://home.ionet.net/~paroales/ROCKET.HTM
This is why one of the first web mail services adopted this name.
Well, I’m an internet user from 1998. so when I came in this world the Rocket Mail was already taken by Yahoo.
Now, finally, I have the opportunity to take a RocketMail address!
[...] watch for the improvements this coming week. Maybe Microsoft will even add a cool new domain like Rocketmail as an option…that kind of thing would be sure to lure users in. If you’re new here, you [...]
You can laugh at names all day long, but by adding new names, there are more choices for e-mail addresses with Yahoo!, which is a good thing. You can find a lot more names to laugh at besides Rocketmail anyway.
[...] perfect headline for this story — but then we remembered we’d already used the phrase “The Launch of Insignificance” for another Yahoo-related story a while back. [...]