An Open Letter to Yahoo!

Dear Yahoo!,

I have had a Yahoo! email account for a very long time. Yahoo! was my first, and I am still using it. Other email addresses have come and gone (alegra@meowmail, alegra@mail.utexas, abartzat@mail.sdsu, alegra@sdecocenter). And even though I actually prefer the other addresses because they are my name, just my name, and nothing but my name, I have stuck with Yahoo! because I like consistency.

I like knowing that pretty much anyone from my past, from high school, college, graduate school, or any job, could contact me at any moment. It is easy to reach me, because my email address hasn't changed. Once in a while I still recieve an email from a long lost friend. And this is nice.

I also don't want to burden others with keeping up with incessently changing email addresses. When I get those "This is my new email address" emails, I rarely update my address book, becuase the sender usually sends them from the old email saying "Don't use this email address anymore." I understand; it's easier because that is where your addresses are saved. Yahoo!, you could save us all from the dilemmma by allowing us to to set up an additional Yahoo! Mail accounts for each Yahoo! profile.

I know that my address book, even my electronic address books, have a great number of expired email addresses. This is sad, especially when you think of someone and write to them to tell them you have thought of them, and the email bounces back. Most especially when you don't have their new address in there along with the old. Again, multiple email accounts within a single profile, and which would be checked at the same login would prevent this kind of problem; the old would be checked along with the new.

With the new advent of google email, or gmail, I feel pressure to change or update my email address. I already use google for their calendar. I also use blogger. I don't want google to be my end-all be-all. I don't like how google is taking over the internet. Neither does Silicon Valley.

I still use Yahoo! Yellow Pages to look up stores and restaurants. But I will admit, google maps is my go-to for mapping, beating out both Yahoo! and MapQuest. It's hard to resist google's powerful pull. Yahoo!, you can help us resist if you would suddenly offer such a useful service, which google hasn't yet thought of and offered.

I want to support Yahoo!, and other internet giants. I also enjoy having a long history of emails at my disposal, able to search out emails from my past on a whim, or for a purpose. So, Yahoo!, I urge you: Allow me to to set up an additional Yahoo! Mail accounts for my Yahoo! profile. Allow me to have both a new Yahoo! Mail account, and my old Yahoo! Mail account.

I understand this is a demanding request; I understand it will require larger servers and more providing power. But, if you spin it just right, and beat google to it, this could keep you in the running as internet's most important player.