A friendly Challenge - SD's oldest Hotmail account

[aceplace57]

I was changing my Hotmail password(s) and noticed the account info showed my account creation date.

The account in my personal name was created November 02, 1998. I have two other hotmail accounts that were created in Feb and April 2000. I did have another hotmail account back around 1998 that expired from inactivity. I never bothered with it again because it was heavily spammed. I use my personal hotmail for friends and family. The two created in 2000 are for web site registrations.

A friendly Challenge upper right corner of hotmail screen, click your name, and select account. When was yours created?

Oldest account gets SD bragging rights.

[aceplace57]

Hotmail used to have a different name before Microsoft bought it. Anyone recall what it was?

[DCnDC]

According to Wikipedia, it was "HoTMaiL".

My current account was created December 20, 2000, but I had one from at least 1997 that expired.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aug 1999. I've not looked in that account in ages!

[toofs]

September 4, 1998.

[gwendee]

December 6, 1996

[ShibbOleth]

Thought it would have been older, April 2001. I only keep it for sentimental and spam purposes. That's three months before I joined the SDMB, and the year before my oldest Yahoo account.

[newcomer]

May 16, 1996.

Before Microsft bought it.

Funny thing was that at the time it was unthinkable to waste characters on full name as email name so I simply used 8 characters longt username from my college Unisys system.

[hajario]

July 22, 1998

[Iggy]

November 15, 1996. I think that was pre-microsoft.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

July 1998, early enough so that my surname alone serves as the address.

My daughter scored that privilege with gmail, however.

[Lanzy]

Just since Dec 2000, I wonder how to find out how old my yahoo is? I got it when it used to be rocketmail.

[by-tor]

April 04, 1997

[Taomist]

I might have had a pretty old one, as soon as Hotmail was out, but...forgot my passwords ages ago and doubt I could log in, or that the accounts exist anymore. Switched when GMail did their beta thing.

[Do Not Taunt]

Sept 12, 1998. Second time I created an account with the same login, since the first one expired from non-use.

[araminty]

I just half-heartedly tried to resuscitate my circa 1998 hotmail account, but no dice. Oh well, I don't mind, but it was a pretty cool address - implementation@hotmail.com. I don't remember why I chose that word as my username.

[Projammer]

December 05, 1998

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

October, 1997

[Captain_C]

February 13, 1999

About a week after I got my first computer and the Internet. I was 15 y.o. Neat!

[jnglmassiv]

August 7, 1998
My Ebay account goes to Sept 15, 1999, FWIW.

[Arabella Flynn]

I'm sure it's long since died, but my original Hotmail account would have been created sometime in 1996. I was tired of wrangling with AOL, which was horribly unreliable, and I wanted an email account to which my parents did not have the password. Typed "free email" into Altavista and landed on Hotmail. I remember when Microsoft bought them out, mostly because of the ever-increasing amounts of crap that started turning up on the page as they switched over to their MSN branding. I scored a Gmail invite a couple months after they started going around, and promptly switched everything over.

[Dolores Reborn]

March 20, 2002

[ZipperJJ]

Originally Posted by DCnDC

According to Wikipedia, it was
My current account was created December 20, 2000...

Originally Posted by gwendee

December 6, 1996

Originally Posted by Lanzy

Just since Dec 2000...

Originally Posted by Projammer

December 05, 1998

Interesting. Mine is December 5 2001.

I also thought it would have been older, maybe 1999.

[D-bear]

April 30, 1999

[GuanoLad]

I can't log in to my old account anymore, they messed something up and it was up to me to fix it, whatever the hell it was. They required my mobile phone number to get it sorted out, and I do not own a mobile phone, so it all failed.

Anyway, I got my original Hotmail, which I would still use if I could, on the 2nd of October 1998.

[Aestivalis]

Only Nov 8, 1998!

[Emily Litella]

August 1, 2002. I started it for spam purposes too, and ignored it for awhile, but I started using the options and junk folders and now my inbox is practically spam-proof. I use it as my primary email now.

[Yorikke]

I was pretty certain that I set up my account in about '97, when I got my first real computer, but it's apparently only been since early 2001.

Joe

[aruvqan]

Interesting.

I never had hotmail, though I did start online with an AOL account in 96, and shifted to a juno account in 97, and almost immediately got hooked up to a private ISP based in Norwich CT a couple months later that had a permanent dial up instead of a dial up when you need to use the computer and I have barely been offline since. I shifted to cable modem in 2003.

[BigT]

Uh, 2011. I win, right?

(I just got it because Gmail wouldn't let me have the name I wanted. I actually use Gmail to check it.)

[BowlOfDucks]

I really don't get attached to email accounts, or any account if I can help it. I have tons, I've forgotten the passwords and/or the account names to quite a few, and I've deleted a load more.

All the email accounts I have at he moment are less than two years old.

[bengangmo]

I dunno how to check - but it should be around 1998 or so....I still have an archived email from 2000, so at least that old.

[interface2x]

Originally Posted by bengangmo

I dunno how to check - but it should be around 1998 or so....I still have an archived email from 2000, so at least that old.

It's the second to last line in the OP.

Mine is January 3, 1998.

[Enderw24]

I think I still have an active AOL screenname from 1996.

[cornflakes]

I've had the same home email since I set up my first Win95 box, probably around Christmas of 1995.

[MaxTheVool]

I've had the same yahoo account since around 1996, but I can't figure out how to find a precise creation date.

I haven't used it in 5+ years, what with being married now and all, but I joined Match.com back before it actually had a website... they would email you a text file, which you would fill out in a very precise way and email back, kind of like the digital version of a scantron test. That was when I was in college, so circa 1993. At the time, accounts were lifetime free, and at some point in the mid 2000's they tried to take away my lifetime free account and I made a fuss about it and they gave it back to me. Might well no longer exist at this point now, however...

[madmonk28]

July 15, 1998. I only use this account for shipping updates from Amazon and C1alis and V1agr@ purchases.

[Sefton]

October 22, 1998

[medicated]

Mine says 2002, but I know this is wrong. I originally set it up when I was about to make my first trip overseas, in 1998. Hmmm.