{"id":386,"date":"2008-10-01T06:52:38","date_gmt":"2008-10-01T06:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/visionarymarketing.wordpress.com\/2008\/10\/01\/yahoos-free-lunch\/"},"modified":"2020-11-07T10:03:29","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T09:03:29","slug":"yahoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visionarymarketing.com\/en\/2008\/10\/01\/yahoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Top user award: There is such a thing as a Yahoo! free lunch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago, when opening my browser, the homepage of which is my Yahoo! mailbox, I got a message warning me that I had been granted top user status. The reward was to follow.<\/em><\/p>\n

Top user award: There is such a thing as a Yahoo! free lunch<\/h2>\n
\"Top
Top user award: There is such a thing as a Yahoo! free lunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have had a Yahoo! mailbox since times immemorial. More than 10 years for sure. Now I understand why so-called \u201cdigital natives\u201d are said to hate e-mail. It is a generational issue. We sort of grew up with it in our professional lives. Youngsters on the contrary favour instant and text messaging; to them, email is what is being used to send messages to your friends\u2019 parents.<\/p>\n

As a result, despite my reluctance regarding the excessive usage of e-mail messaging (re. my article on the subject here<\/a>) I realise now that I was granted that award that I am therefore a heavy user of this stuff. The sheer amount of time I must have spent on the Yahoo! e-mail system is just staggering. But this event also triggered the following thoughts:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. it means that my e-mail usage has been tracked and traced by Yahoo! I don\u2019t really have an issue with this personally, I\u2019ve got nothing to hide. But yet, when did I last agreed to this and where?<\/li>\n
  2. (more positively) the new Yahoo! interface, all Ajax-based, is responsive, user-friendly and is a good substitute to \u201cfat client\u201d messaging clients like the antiquated Outlook Express or Eudora. In fact, I merged all my e-mail address into that one as soon as the new Yahoo! interface was made available. Besides, additional Yahoo! Go 3.0 and the mobile Internet version (http:\/\/m.yahoo.com<\/a>) makes it possible to answer e-mail on the go.<\/li>\n
  3. it doesn\u2019t take much to please a free customer. For one, I was happy as can be as soon as I read that I was granted the reward. Secondly, the award in question was mostly made of being granted larger e-mail sizes (20 MB) which isn\u2019t much use to me, however. Thirdly I\u2019m writing about it on his blog which means that I must be very happy about it. Lastly, I haven\u2019t had any more details about this so-called reward. A more specific e-mail was to be sent to me but I haven\u2019t received anything yet.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Having said that, receiving rewards for your loyalty for a free service is not bad after all, and possibly better than what you get for paid subscription services. What did I ever get from my cable TV operator
    \nfor instance except for shaky service and technical problems?<\/p>\n

    At the end of the day, we were wrong to badmouth the late \u2018new\u2019 economy. It certainly went bust, but who can tell that today\u2019s financial crisis isn\u2019t going to end up any worse? Eventually, Yahoo! is still here to grant kudos to its nonpaying users. Lehman Brothers aren\u2019t. A free \u2013 even frugal \u2013 lunch is always a good thing as long as it lasts.<\/p>\n