The new email service from Microsoft will receive a name that combines the familiar Hotmail name with the heavily-backed Windows Live brand.

Ultimately we think faithful Hotmail users will continue to call the Windows Live branded service by the name they have known for over ten years. Long-time users who recall Hotmail’s origins may remember the various obstacles Microsoft encountered in 1997 when they bought Hotmail and moved it from Solaris to Windows servers.

The Yahoo Mail beta offers sophisticated desktop client-like email features, but in terms of speed has demonstrated a dismayingly slow loading pace. It’s an issue that Yahoo has been working to fix.

Balakumar does a visual usability review (in the style of the recent Windows Live Mail review). He starts off his post with:

Yahoo has plans to add an instant messaging service to their Yahoo Mail. It will be following the model of Google’s Gmail which added IM several months a go. Yahoo Mail has an estimated 250 million users and is currently more widely used then Gmail.

Yahoo announced at Yahoo Hack Day that they’ll open Yahoo Mail, so programmers can develop extensions and new interfaces for Yahoo Mail.

Last night I mentioned that we’d have a few more announcements on the Yahoo! Developer Network today.

The Windows Live Mail Desktop team has released a new version.

Yahoo has some 80 million users in the United States, and the next time they login to check their email they will be offered the opportunity to switch to the Outlook-like Yahoo Mail Beta version.

“Personalization” on the web is becoming very popular. Sites like MySpace and Yahoo! seem to go to great lengths to allow users to create their own “identities” online – both intellectually and physically.

It’s pretty amusing watching everyone misinterpret the recently released Hitwise data. Claims of “MySpace Bigger than Yahoo!” sure make for good headlines, but only if “good” means “attention grabbing” not “based in reality.”

In conjunction with Microsoft’s recently launched MSN adCenter, the company unveiled a new feature for the Beta version of Windows Live Mail Desktop called “Active Search” that conducts automatic searches related to email content while serving up targeted contextual sponsored links.

Google owns the search market, but for other content types the number two search engine company has first place in those categories.

A moderator at MSGShit has put up a download of Windows Live Mail Desktop, the closed beta desktop client for accessing Hotmail accounts.

Wireless email provider Visto prevailed in a patent infringement suit against Yahoo and Sprint partner Seven Networks; Visto’s attorneys celebrated by filing a lawsuit against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.

As I go around Microsoft I ask teams “are you just gonna sell your participants/partners/users/customers down the river or are you gonna stand up for them?”

The high drama surrounding AOL’s arrangement with Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail service was further escalated Thursday after MoveOn.org, one of the company’s most brutal critics, announced that AOL had blocked emails containing links to MoveOn’s petition site, DearAOL.com.

InfoUSA is set to launch its new online direct mail program called ZipMailUSA.com to all subscribers of their online prospecting system, Salesgenie.com.

Security fears over viruses, bandwidth hogging, and the terror of violating government regulatory laws have prompted big business to put the squeeze on their staffer’s needs.

The vaunted Yahoo Mail update has been rolled out to its UK users as part of a wider beta test of the service’s new functionality.

Yes, white papers are an effective way to generate leads with business buyers. But the tricky part is getting your white paper into the hands of those buyers in the first place.

Participating in the first UK preview of Windows Live in London last Thursday evening was a worthwhile experience.