Tips: Alternatives to Traditional Domain Names (contd.)

Vanity Email Services

It may well be that you don't really need a domain name at all, but simply a more exciting email address for your individual or company use. There are many companies in the business of supplying "vanity" email addresses: that is, addresses of the form yourname@interestingdomainname.com.

Vanity email addresses will often be easier to remember than your current address, and they will also enable you to change service providers or "real" email addresses at will as all your email will continue to go to your virtual email address.

How do these vanity email addresses work? There are two basic systems: the forwarding address and the web mailbox.

If you choose an email address with a forwarding address option, all email you receive at your new address will be automatically forwarded to your normal email box. This process is completely transparent. If you configure your email software correctly, you can continue to use your real email address, but make all email you send look as if it comes from your virtual email address.

If you choose an email address with a web mailbox, you will need to log into the company's site to read your email. This is less convenient that simply receiving your email in the normal way, but this makes it easy to read your email from any browser, anywhere in the world!

I have saved the best thing about vanity email addresses until last: most of them are completely FREE, with companies subsidising them through advertising and other means. Even the paid services are only a few dollars a year.

Companies providing free vanity mail addresses include iName and StarMail. Paid addresses are available from MailBank, VanityWeb, US Email and The Internet Mailbox Company. The paid address companies often offer additional services that are not available with the free vanity email addresses.

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