I'm always urging people to get their own domain, even if they don't want to have a web site, because it gives them much more flexibility and permanency in terms of their email address. Here's an article on the potential job prospects for people with "hip" email addresses.

And of course, what would a story like this be without a hilarious Freeper thread about it?

People have said that it's unprofessional to have an address with AOL or another "free" provider, but I've always maintained that the name is a LOT more important than the domain.

While the name is more important than the domain, they're both important.

Yes, well, anyone contemplating using their own domain for e-mail should be aware that in time (4 to 5 years in my case, probably a lot less now) there will be billions of spam messages out there that use your domain in the return address. Hence you will run the risk of getting blacklisted in various ways, and, of course, you'll need to filter out umpty undeliverable messages every day.

I'm just holding my breath waiting for one of the various domain-authentication schemes to take hold. But you'll probably need to have some major e-mail provider guaranteeing your authenticity anyway. So, really, since you aren't going to be able to be unassociated with one of the major e-mail providers, I'm not sure that the benefits of using your own domain front-to-back (as opposed to your own subdomain of some large provider's domain, e.g. you@mycorp.aol.com) are going to be worth it much longer.

It's amazing but most people just don't care, even after they've changed email providers multiple times with attendent hassle. I've been offering the rest of my family foo@hoult.org addresses for nearly seven years now and not one has taken me up on it even though I provide POP and SMTP and webmail and will of course forward to anywere they want. And they're all used to sending messages to the family mailing list I host there as well (which has 30ish people on it).

I find this strange, but perhaps they find me strange too.

Maybe they're afraid you're going to read their e-mail, Bruce.

Well, there are some cases where having a personalized Domain Name with your family's last name isn't all it's cracked up to be...

When I was in College, They had a Naming Scheeme for email addresses that used 5 letters from the last name, First Initial, Middle Initial, and a integer designating what semester you first enrolled at the school.

It Wasn't that great for Mary Elizabeth Cumings, who ended up with "Cuminme2@..."

Tony: Ouch. Such results are what Policy Exceptions are for.

Having had the same email address (at an ISP now defunct and owned by Earthlink, who very nicely keeps the old domain name alive for email purposes) for something like 15 years now, that's the only think keeping me from changing ISPs, or going to Cable from DSL.

(Nothing against Earthlink's DSL provision, really, but it'd be cheaper to have my phsyical line provider provide the DSL service on top of it, or to go to faster Cable.)