Shoot ahead a few more years and you'll find that my email address had changed to CrshDMB. This of course reflected my love of the Dave Matthews Band, because a) I had by this time realized that Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't actually aboard a doomed 1912 oceanliner and was instead dancing on tables grabbing his crotch on the cover of the National Enquirer, and so I needed new interests, and b) the only thing that expressed ones fandom more than wearing size XL concert t-shirts with blue nylon shorts to band camp, was making an AOL email address that contained your favorite band's name.
Fast forward to 2011, and as much as I would like my email address to be HobbitHoarder78, I have stuck with a much simpler first name_last name @ gmail format. This great post on Google's blog offers help for those friends of ours who have been unable to let go of their goofy and outdated AOL (among other) email addresses, and who have failed to discover the beauty of using Gmail.
We all have a story like this. On the Gmail team, we affectionately refer to them as “email interventions.” We hear about them all the time: the cousin who finally switched from an embarassing address like hottie6elliot1977 to a more professional elliot.d.smith@gmail.com, a co-worker who helped his dentist switch after he heard her grumble about having to pay for IMAP access, etc.
Staging an intervention is simple:
- Visit emailintervention.com
- Sign in and automatically identify who from your contacts has yet to make the switch, or just enter a friend’s email address manually
- Choose from one of three intervention message templates (“straightforward”, “concerned” or “ embarrassed”), and add your own intervention video if you’d like
- Send a customized email and follow up as needed
So go ahead, do your mom (BeckysMom1958), your dad (Hammockguy37), and this fellow:
a favor, and stage an email intervention ASAP.
