WATCH OUT, GMAIL: The New Hotmail Is Surprisingly Cool

You've Got MailIt's hard to believe now, but at one time — 1996, in fact — Hotmail was the best email available on the web. Microsoft acquired the former "HoTMaiL" in 1997 for $400 million, back in the day when looking at your email on the web, as opposed to a dedicated desktop client, was still a wild new idea.

Hotmail quickly dominated web-based email. It's still hugely popular, with roughly 360 million monthly users. Google's Gmail has only just overtaken it in popularity.

Of course, that's all history.

When Google launched Gmail in 2004, Google offered more storage, larger attachment sizes and a search function that allowed you to look through your email without, you know, actually looking through it.

In the same period, Hotmail became a living example of the way the web can quickly create and then destroy hugely popular products: Microsoft took it through several rebrandings: as Microsoft Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail, MSN Hotmail, and now Outlook.com. (Even though web users keep their Hotmail.com addresses.)

The new Hotmail, under Microsoft's Outlook redesign, is actually fantastic. It's super-fast, and super-easy to use. Aside from one key flaw, it makes Gmail feel out of date.