. . . . . : Bhatia from Hotmail Now 2 Blogs : . . . . .

[abracadabra]

Sabeer Bhatia, the Bangalore student who with a colleague invented the iconic Hotmail e-mail service and went on to make a fortune by selling it to Microsoft, is returning to fix what he describes as a “neglected stepchild�.

Mr Bhatia on Monday unveiled his first attempt to “enhance the Hotmail experience�.

Mr Bhatia is in India to announce the global launch of blogeverywhere.com. Users of the website will be able to download a toolbar that allows them to write and publish their own blogs, while also giving Hotmail users faster access to their messages.

Blogeverywhere’s toolbar will download unread e-mail messages and store them in a local cache while a first message is being read. Users will then be able to access unread messages from their computer’s own memory instead of having to retrieve them from the internet.

Mr Bhatia believes the technology will cut down the lag time internet-based e-mail users experience in developing markets such as India where high-speed internet access is not widely available for the country’s estimated 250m online users.

Mr Bhatia has invested $5m from his personal fortune to develop blogeverywhere over the past two years. The idea was initially conceived by Shiraz Kanga, an Indian former software developer with Cisco Systems.

Mr Bhatia will also on Monday launch an internet telephony service similar to Skype. He says he is in talks with four Indian telecoms companies that could enable PC users anywhere in the world to call a land line, or mobile number in India for Rs1

source: Headlines Today, Google.co.in News - Sci n Tech

[mohit]

sabeer bhatia back in form .. his previous venture arzoo.com was pulled down or something by him ... lets see what miracle he does this time.

[redlaser]

hotmail was a great idea.unfortunately id say(come on,i know u do too) that blogeverywhere.com's has a very big chance of becoming another arzoo.The look itself is so bad and its integration with firefox is really bad,also if he's putting in 5 million $,i don understand why he thinks that local email strategy is going to get him any leverage in comparison to all the other altenatives.The onlt attractive thing it has is those free gizmos he promises to give.Seriously why would i even consider it when i have Wordpress or blogger.com also.
On the other hand the other skype-like project's going to be a real hit.Re 1 a minute,il buy as much credit as i can.

[iMav]

hey ppl give him some time do u think he doesn't know

The look itself is so bad and its integration with firefox is really bad,also if he's putting in 5 million $,i don understand why he thinks that local email strategy is going to get him any leverage in comparison to all the other altenatives.The onlt attractive thing it has is those free gizmos he promises to give.Seriously why would i even consider it when i have Wordpress or blogger.com

.........this he'll come up with something and if Gates is backing the project it sure will shake the 'Bloggers Park'

[sunfever]

while we are very happy to see Indian ladies churning the http daemons with more ideas...it still remains to be seen if bhatia baby can post another winner...chances are NOT.

Main negative (for me): another tool bar. Puhleeeze....each tool bar drags browser performance down one more notch. I've junked (or hidden) everything 'cept the Google 'bar.

Bhatia is trying another me too....as long as it is me too its most likely going to sink than swim. Blogs are coming out of our ears these days...whats so different from the Blog This! button distributed with the Google toolbar? I guess the 5mil was burning a hole in his pocket and he wanted to go wild with it