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ireland.com Service Discontinuation

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13

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    #62
    trad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭trad


    Yep, I could buy a domain name, already have one but I don't want my personal stuff being routed through my work site and likewise I have one for my music trad@ irl which I like very much and wouldn't like to loose it.


    I'll wait and see what Veradker comes back with.


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    #63
    ytpe2r5bxkn0c1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ytpe2r5bxkn0c1


    I just don't see what all the fuss is about. If you want somebody to provide you with a FREE email service then there are lots out there. The Irish Times is entitled to do as they please, as is Tourism Ireland.

    If you want guarantees then pay for them!


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    #64
    java
    Registered Users Posts: 319 ✭✭java


    Trenton Sour Shrub wrote: »
    I just don't see what all the fuss is about. If you want somebody to provide you with a FREE email service then there are lots out there. The Irish Times is entitled to do as they please, as is Tourism Ireland.

    If you want guarantees then pay for them!

    Couldn't agree more. Amazes me the amount of people who think "free" email is a right.


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    #65
    podgee
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭podgee


    Trenton Sour Shrub wrote: »
    If you want guarantees then pay for them!

    As you'll see from this and other threads, some of us old timers, who signed up at the very start of ireland.com were paying for many years for the email account - €30 or so a year. Ireland.com then, with the advent of gmail IIRC, introduced the free offering.
    java wrote: »
    Couldn't agree more. Amazes me the amount of people who think "free" email is a right.

    I think if you read the thread, nobody is claiming it to be a 'right'. The crux of the issue is that a lot of people, myself included, have had the address for many years, since the late nineties anyway, and have attached lots of our digital life to the address.

    If forwarding was offered as an option, I think it'd satisfy a lot of people. If on the otherhand, Tourism Ireland decided to offer the service for a nominal fee per account, then it would certainly appeal to me and I'd imagine a number of other people who could do without the hassle of working out what they have to change and changing it.

    In addition to the Tourism Ireland angle, I'm sure a number of the 36,278,332 Irish Americans would be only to glad to grasp a bit of the 'oul digital sod and have their own @ireland.com email address.

    P


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    #66
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,497 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    podgee wrote: »
    As you'll see from this and other threads, some of us old timers, who signed up at the very start of ireland.com were paying for many years for the email account - €30 or so a year. Ireland.com then, with the advent of gmail IIRC, introduced the free offering.

    There were plenty of e-mail providers in existence before gmail.com came along,

    In addition to the Tourism Ireland angle, I'm sure a number of the 36,278,332 Irish Americans would be only to glad to grasp a bit of the 'oul digital sod and have their own @ireland.com email address.

    P

    But the facts and figures don't backup your belief,

    If Ireland.com was so attractive to Irish Americans then surely the Irish Times would have had much much much more then 15k users.....15k users is really nothing for a e-mail provider. I once had a e-mail service on offer on a domain I had and managed 18k users, in comparison to the Irish Times the domain in question got next to no traffic compared to Ireland.com.

    Tourism Ireland have already said they are not in the business of providing a e-mail service,


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    #67
    ytpe2r5bxkn0c1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ytpe2r5bxkn0c1


    podgee wrote: »
    In addition to the Tourism Ireland angle, I'm sure a number of the 36,278,332 Irish Americans would be only to glad to grasp a bit of the 'oul digital sod and have their own @ireland.com email address.

    P
    That doesn't hold water on several fronts. If so desirable then why a tiny 15,000 users to date (not all of which they say are active)? Also if millions took to it there is no gain for Tourism Ireland and lots of costs. Flaunting an Ireland.com address doesn't mean a thing if they sit in the USA just spouting gombeen Irish and never leaving the country.


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    #68
    podgee
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭podgee


    Cabaal wrote: »
    There were plenty of e-mail providers in existence before gmail.com came along,

    Perhaps there were - it's irrelevant though. What matters is when ireland.com came along, was there other free choices ? There wasn't or certainly not that were widely available or known about.

    Cabaal wrote: »
    But the facts and figures don't backup your belief,
    You are right, but bear in mind that it was never marketed to an Irish American audience - if you had someone like Tourism Ireland behind it, aiming it at the audiences they reach, I'd imagine it would have a wider appeal.


    P


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    #69
    podgee
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭podgee


    Trenton Sour Shrub wrote: »
    That doesn't hold water on several fronts. If so desirable then why a tiny 15,000 users to date (not all of which they say are active)?

    See my post above. It was never marketed to an Irish American audience - a bit of Ireland and all that.
    Trenton Sour Shrub wrote: »
    Also if millions took to it there is no gain for Tourism Ireland and lots of costs.

    You'd expect that if 'millions' subscribed then that would more than defray the costs of the service provision.

    P


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    #70
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,497 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    podgee wrote: »
    Perhaps there were - it's irrelevant though. What matters is when ireland.com came along, was there other free choices ? There wasn't or certainly not that were widely available or known about.

    What are you on about?
    There were hundreds of free e-mail providers around before and after the Irish Times starting offering free e-mail....and certainly after the Irish times starting charging silly money for a service that should have been free. The smart people of course jumped ship after it stopped being free.

    As for not knowing about other free e-mail providers, errr yes I suppose brands like Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN etc are just so unknown to everyone on the internet back then.
    :rolleyes:


    You are right, but bear in mind that it was never marketed to an Irish American audience - if you had someone like Tourism Ireland behind it, aiming it at the audiences they reach, I'd imagine it would have a wider appeal.

    Wider appeal then gmail.com or any of the mainstream e-mail providers that integrate with other products and services on the internet? Again it can't compete.

    The Irish Times tried for years to make Ireland.com to work for them in anyway they could, they were 100% right to sell off the sinking ship. As I've said before 15k active or semi-active users is basically nothing for a e-mail service.....I've had more users on sites I've operated in the past.

    Move on change your e-mail address and if you use it for a business get yourself a domain so atleast it looks more professional.


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    #71
    granturismo
    Registered Users Posts: 1,921 ✭✭✭granturismo


    Cabaal wrote: »
    The Irish Times tried for years to make Ireland.com to work for them in anyway they could,.

    They stopped marketing ireland.com/email when they stopped charging.


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    #72
    Eric Cartman
    Registered Users Posts: 26,280 ✭✭✭✭Eric Cartman


    RangeR wrote: »
    On that same subject, the amount of businesses that advertise themselves as <insert company name>@eircom.net on their vehicle livery is unbelievable.

    I dont think Id ever use a company that has that little cop on to buy a 7 euro domain, it looks cheap and unprofessional


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    #73
    trad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭trad


    Just a follow on from my last post about a boards.ie email address.

    Boards.ie tell me that they no longer offer an email service. It used an @bmail.ie address.


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    #74
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,497 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    I was bored today so i put on a Joe Duffy podcast and listened to a women complain about the affects on her business.

    The business being http://www.thecreativewritersworkshop.com/, the women who owns it has a lovely domain name but yet she was unhappy about the Irish Times shutting down her @ireland.com e-mail address and how this would affect her business.

    As unhappy as she was and how she had to update this and that as of the date and time of this post she still has her @ireland.com e-mail address listed as her contact e-mail address on her website above, she has a lovely domain name so it makes no sense why she doesn't use info@herdomain.com.

    Even if she got the domain name after she got her @ireland.com domain she could have switched them across over the years.

    The rest of the podcast consisted of some very misinformed people talking about how they were never told it was a business service or that Tourism Ireland need to get a different domain or other such nonsense.

    Now in fairness to the women I mentioned above she just wanted a autoresponse setup to say something along the lines of "this e-mail address is closed, please e-mail me at newaddress@domain.com".

    This of course didn't make some of the other callers happy as they wanted forwarding because he uses amazon etc (not a big job to update your e-mail address with them)

    I guess in this case why bother trying to make people happy when its clear that its not worth it, especially when you are dumping the Ireland.com domain anyway...which is going to make people happy anyway regardless of what you do for them.


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    #75
    trad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭trad


    I think what this boils down to is I'm proud to be Irish and I'd like my email address to represent me as a proud Irish person so that is why I'd like to hang onto my ireland.com email address even If I have to pay for them (I did at the start)


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    #76
    28064212
    Registered Users Posts: 10,689 ✭✭✭✭28064212


    trad wrote: »
    I think what this boils down to is I'm proud to be Irish and I'd like my email address to represent me as a proud Irish person so that is why I'd like to hang onto my ireland.com email address even If I have to pay for them (I did at the start)
    I'd like lots of things. It doesn't mean another company or individual needs to provide them for me. Tourism Ireland own ireland.com. They've made a decision to not provide an email service. You're talking about forcing them to provide an email service because it happens to be what suits you

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    #77
    trad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,696 ✭✭✭trad


    28064212 wrote: »
    I'd like lots of things. It doesn't mean another company or individual needs to provide them for me. Tourism Ireland own ireland.com. They've made a decision to not provide an email service. You're talking about forcing them to provide an email service because it happens to be what suits you

    I, and many like me, are offering them and excellent return on investment.

    Tourism Ireland bought a domain name for approx half a million euro. All they have is a very expensive domain name.

    If 15,000 subscribers pay €10 per domain name per year they recoup their initial outlay in about 5 years allowing for the cost of operating the service. All the infrastructure is in place.

    If 50,000 people worldwide use the ireland.com address they will make megabucks and can spend the money promoting tourism.


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    #78
    28064212
    Registered Users Posts: 10,689 ✭✭✭✭28064212


    trad wrote: »
    I, and many like me, are offering them and excellent return on investment.
    No, you're not. You're speculating that there might be a possible opportunity.
    trad wrote: »
    Tourism Ireland bought a domain name for approx half a million euro. All they have is a very expensive domain name.
    Which they will use in ways which they feel will best fit their business.
    trad wrote: »
    If 15,000 subscribers pay €10 per domain name per year they recoup their initial outlay in about 5 years allowing for the cost of operating the service. All the infrastructure is in place.
    You really think significant numbers of people will pay for an email service? It had 15,000 people (no word on how many were active) when it was free, what makes you think that would increase by making it a paid service?

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    #79
    podgee
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭podgee


    Cabaal wrote: »
    What are you on about?
    There were hundreds of free e-mail providers around before and after the Irish Times starting offering free e-mail.

    Oh really ? Who were they ? When people originally signed up in 97 to ireland.com for email : yahoo, msn and hotmail were in their infancy. Brands ? :rolleyes: They weren't brands, they were barely out of the starting blocks.
    Cabaal wrote: »
    What are you on about?
    The smart people of course jumped ship after it stopped being free.
    What are you on about ? When did it stop being free ?

    P


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    #80
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,497 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    podgee wrote: »
    Oh really ? Who were they ? When people originally signed up in 97 to ireland.com for email : yahoo, msn and hotmail were in their infancy. Brands ? :rolleyes: They weren't brands, they were barely out of the starting blocks.

    I think you'll find they were brands and very big and well known brands at that time, and they were worth far more then the Irish Times was ever worth and is now.

    Both MSN and Hotmail were owned by Microsoft in 1997...they bought hotmail.com for $400 million odd, I guess they were small fry compared to the giant that was Ireland.com even though back then...
    :rolleyes:

    As for Yahoo, well like google is now Yahoo was seen as "the internet" by a majority and if not Yahoo then any number of the other search engines such as lyco's or excite...all of which also provided e-mail and still had more e-mail users then Ireland.com.

    podgee, atleast if your going to discuss online companys please have a clue what you are on about.
    What are you on about ? When did it stop being free ?

    P

    Some time in the early 00's (off hand 2002) the Irish times started charging for Ireland.com e-mail addresses as well as other content on the site because their previous business model for Ireland.com was loosing them massive amounts of money,

    As i said thats when the smart people left and only the fools stayed on that sinking ship.


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    #81
    podgee
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭podgee


    Cabaal wrote: »
    podgee, atleast if your going to discuss online companys please have a clue what you are on about.

    You sure about that ?
    Cabaal wrote: »
    Some time in the early 00's (off hand 2002) the Irish times started charging for Ireland.com e-mail addresses as well as other content on the site because their previous business model for Ireland.com was loosing them massive amounts of money,

    As i said thats when the smart people left and only the fools stayed on that sinking ship.
    Now you are just being plain silly. You are completely incorrect. When ireland.com was launched, they charged for email addresses and subsequently offered the service as a free one, not the other way around as you seem to believe.

    With the greatest of respect, don't spout rubbish when you clearly haven't a clue what you are talking about.

    P


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    #82
    28064212
    Registered Users Posts: 10,689 ✭✭✭✭28064212


    podgee wrote: »
    You sure about that ?


    Now you are just being plain silly. You are completely incorrect. When ireland.com was launched, they charged for email addresses and subsequently offered the service as a free one, not the other way around as you seem to believe.

    With the greatest of respect, don't spout rubbish when you clearly haven't a clue what you are talking about.

    P
    If you're going to call someone out, don't be wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irish_Times#Online

    Boardsie Enhancement Suite - a browser extension to make using Boards on desktop a better experience (includes full-width display, keyboard shortcuts, dark mode, and more). Now available through your browser's extension store.

    Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/boardsie-enhancement-suite/

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    #83
    keithclancy
    Registered Users Posts: 9,208 ✭✭✭keithclancy


    podgee wrote: »
    You sure about that ?


    Now you are just being plain silly. You are completely incorrect. When ireland.com was launched, they charged for email addresses and subsequently offered the service as a free one, not the other way around as you seem to believe.

    With the greatest of respect, don't spout rubbish when you clearly haven't a clue what you are talking about.

    P

    I think you'll find you're wrong there:
    http://web.archive.org/web/19990427211920/http://www.ireland.com/

    Also, Hotmail has been around since 1996:
    http://web.archive.org/web/19961220074303/http://hotmail.com/


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    #84
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,497 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    podgee wrote: »
    Now you are just being plain silly. You are completely incorrect. When ireland.com was launched, they charged for email addresses and subsequently offered the service as a free one, not the other way around as you seem to believe.

    Wrong,
    Now you are just looking like a complete fool,

    :rolleyes:

    As well as the evidence outlined above you can even listen to Ireland.com users confirm it changed to a charged service on Joe Duffy http://podcast.rasset.ie/podcasts/audio/2012/1016/20121016_irelandcom_c20030760_20030762_232_.mp3

    If your going to try say somebody is wrong atleast have a clue what you are on about, :pac:
    With the greatest of respect, don't spout rubbish when you clearly haven't a clue what you are talking about.

    P

    You might want to follow your own advice as it applys to yourself only so far,
    :rolleyes:


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    #85
    Cabaal
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 28,497 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cabaal


    Just to add

    Ireland.com e-mail page in December 2001
    Note 30 CHARGE for e-mail
    http://web.archive.org/web/20011201073046/http://scripts.ireland.com/services/email/

    The same page in 2000, clearly states its free
    http://web.archive.org/web/200011090325/http://www.ireland.com/services/email/

    Oh and podgee, its pretty damn amazing that any users had a paid or free Ireland.com e-mail address since 1997 as The Irish times didn't offer it back then, it wasn't until 1999 that they offered the service to internet users.

    Seriously, do some basic research so you don't look like an idiot,


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    #86
    podgee
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭podgee


    28064212 wrote: »
    If you're going to call someone out, don't be wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irish_Times#Online

    Ehh, no I'm not. The above link makes no reference whatsoever to email being free and then paid for. It talks about access to the Irish Times yes, but email, I think not. Pls correct me if I have misread.

    P


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    #87
    28064212
    Registered Users Posts: 10,689 ✭✭✭✭28064212


    podgee wrote: »
    Ehh, no I'm not. The above link makes no reference whatsoever to email being free and then paid for. It talks about access to the Irish Times yes, but email, I think not. Pls correct me if I have misread.

    P
    It talks about ireland.com, which included the Irish Times and the email service. And it corroborates the links you've been provided with above. You have been proven totally and utterly wrong

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    #88
    podgee
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭podgee


    keithclancy wrote: »
    I think you'll find you're wrong there:
    http://web.archive.org/web/19990427211920/http://www.ireland.com/

    Also, Hotmail has been around since 1996:
    http://web.archive.org/web/19961220074303/http://hotmail.com/

    Keith - Nice site - never knew of it's existence.

    Clearly it proves my recollection is somewhat different to the fact. I could have honestly swore, in fact I did swear, that it (email) was initially paid for then free. So it was in fact free, then paid for, then free again. Cabaal - I do apologise.

    P


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    #89
    RangeR
    Registered Users Posts: 7,265 ✭✭✭RangeR


    </follow>


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    #90
    Fr Tod Umptious
    Registered Users Posts: 15,275 ✭✭✭✭Fr Tod Umptious


    podgee wrote: »
    Perhaps there were - it's irrelevant though. What matters is when ireland.com came along, was there other free choices ? There wasn't or certainly not that were widely available or known about.



    You are right, but bear in mind that it was never marketed to an Irish American audience - if you had someone like Tourism Ireland behind it, aiming it at the audiences they reach, I'd imagine it would have a wider appeal.


    P

    There were loads around in the late '90s when @ireland.com was launched.

    I had a hotmail account and a yahoo account at the time but went for @ireland.com cos I gota really handy alias on it.


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    #91
    Fr Tod Umptious
    Registered Users Posts: 15,275 ✭✭✭✭Fr Tod Umptious


    Well they seem to have been taking some user concerns on board

    This arrived a few mins ago
    Dear account holder,



    Once again The Irish Times would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the discontinuation of the ireland.com email service. We wish to address some issues raised by customers last week following the announcement.



    We are extending the period of access to your account from December 7th to January 15th. During this time, you will not be able to send mail, but you will be able to receive mail and to access your account for the purpose of reading mail and transferring any data (i.e. emails, tasks, documents, appointments, and/or contacts) currently saved on your account.



    We will also extend the automated response function on your account for the same period so you can inform people of your change of email address. You can set your ireland.com email account so that anyone who emails you receives an automated response informing him/her of your change of address until January 15th. Please see instructions on how to notify contacts of your new email address in our step-by-step guide.



    Should you need any assistance, we have a helpline available Monday to Friday from 8am to 8pm on telephone 1890 876 666 and 01 685 6999 or email customerservice@digitalworx.ie.



    We have also provided a very handy step-by-step guide and FAQs on ireland.com to help with this transition to a new email account.


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