get a 90% penalty on their pitch the moment their email comes in. Who on earth would still want to use some_email@aol.com and expect to be taken seriously for a project or colloboration?
Very rarely I still see older folks use it who are actually talented, and I feel someone just hasn’t clued them in. If you are one, take heed:
- Using an AOL email address is lame and uncool
- It implies you might be on average 55 years old.
- It implies that you are set in your ways, which are very old, and are not playing around with anything new.
- It implies your technical and/or social skills online are severly limited to a bubble universe.
- It implies your offer would have to knock me off my feet for me to treat it seriously coming from an AOL account.
- At least it also means you save me a lot of time. I can safely refuse or delete your pitch without having to find out your limitations after more due diligence.
Just this weekend someone wrote to me using an AOL account pitching a new channel. There’s no way this will work, and some of the content in the email naturally gave away other inconsistencies. I wouldn’t notice them at first if red flags didn’t go off right at the start when I saw AOL in the email address.
If you are still in the workforce AND use AOL as your main account, you have no idea what kind of damage you are doing to your credibility. Time is short, and people judge you in a split second. Don’t let your choice of email prevent you from being considered normal. Go use Google’s Gmail instead.
I’m always the same with local companies, they even spend the money to get stationary and vehicles stickered up with their local ISP email account. What’s a few pounds/dollars to get your own domain?
Isnt email@aol.com free nowadays? If so, how is it any different than @hotmail, yahoo, even gmail?
Because free has little to do with it. Once you use AOL, there’s that stigma attached, and it’s correct 98% of the time.
If someone insists on wearing their clothes inside out, it doesn’t matter if they got it for free. They’re still nobody I take seriously.
I agree with you, sort of, but in reality i also admit that it is pretty silly to assume the stigma based purely on @aol alone. At the very least, hotmail and yahoo should be right in that category, and soon gmail too.
, but then again, yahoo and hotmail should be right up in there.
I know you mentioned older people, etc – you have to assume that some people just dont care, they use what they are used to using.
On the other hand using one for business purposes – i probably agree with you
BTW, your rant sounds way too much like Apple die-hards saying everyone who doesnt use Apple product is old, not-hip, etc…
Most people, could not care less