Microsoft Gives Hotmail its Biggest Makeover Yet

Hotmail, the email service no one but your technophobic aunts and uncles wants to admit to using, has long been due for a serious overhaul. As of today, Microsoft has finally cleaned up the interface with a Metro UI overlay, leaving messages even more screen real estate than Gmail. And Hotmail's much-hated banner ads are gone for good, replaced with less intrusive text ads that look (you guessed it) about like Gmail's.

"People weren't satisfied, and with good reason," Microsoft's Brian Hall told AllThingsD. Not content just to fix problems, Microsoft is introducing a slew of new features. Most notably, social network integration will pull contact info directly from Facebook and Twitter, and a forthcoming update will allow direct-from-inbox Skype calls.

The goal, Hall explained, is to attract "tens of millions" of new users, essentially by making Hotmail cool. Sound impossible? Microsoft isn't blind to the Hotmail-is-for-luddites stigma. So Hotmail is now called Outlook.

Longtime hotmail users can transfer their account to a new (less dorky) @http://ign.com/outlook.com address, and newcomers can sign up for one. The new usernames are first-come-first-serve, and as the gold rush only started this morning there's still a chance you could get your actual name, without any numbers or anime references. You can sign up or make the switch here.

On the off-chance that you're attached to that old Hotmail address, no need to worry: Microsoft won't disable it; they'll preserve it as an alias in the new Outlook system. Hotmail holdouts will, however, be prompted to switch over to the new interface over the coming year.

"We will move all Hotmail users," Hall explained, "just because it is a hell of a lot better."

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN. 

Source : ign[dot]com