Close to Cutting Edge: Live Mail v8

Well, well, finally. Progress! This new interface of Microsoft Live Mail has improved. I believe the current version is called v8.

Now, if the Live Mail team can convince the ad folk to dump that ridiculously large banner at the top of the page, then they've got a winner on their hands. No, I'm not saying "no ads", what I'm saying is better use of screen real estate. Use different ad banner sizes. The operative word here is to make ads less intrusive and more "seamless". Let users do what they need to do (it's an email UI after all, so let the user communicate!), they'll appreciate you for it, will evangelize Live Mail, and ultimately add more value (users) who aren't peeved about ads, and may actually take notice and appreciate ads (of course with better targeting). Ad "overload" is one of the reasons why people tune out, I know I do.

Again, take another look at Yahoo Mail (beta) design sense of incorporating ads into the interface. The ads don't "steal" away from the main purpose of the UI - email. Notice I'm not even suggesting the GMail look and there's a very good reason for it. Email is largely text, so having more text ads, just clutters the UI, which steals from it's purpose - I get dizzy with all that text sometimes! I use GMail largely because, well, I have it, and is a "newer" email account that has "escaped" from the scourge of spam - I'm sure that over time, it will change...by contrast I've had hotmail for, well about 7 - 8 years! The good old days....

Kudos to the Live Mail team!