A friend was asking me about my email address (lonbil.co.uk) and wanted to know why I hadn’t just stuck with my gmail address or ISP-provided email address.
As we were in a rush, and the question was tangential to the task at hand, I told him I’d have a think about it and get back to him.
Types of address
I would classify email addresses into 4 broad groups:
- Work addresses: This will be something along the lines of john.doe@megacorpintersolar.com
This has a lifetime of your employment with Mega Corp Inter Solar. When you leave, you email address will probably be de-activated. - Free Addresses: These are your gmail,hotmail and yahoo type addresses. These are fine for personal contacts, and as contact addresses for websites and mailing lists.
- Vanity Addresses: I use this term to cover addresses for domains you own, but are named like thedoefmaily.org or jonathanliversingstoneseagull.org.
- Your Own Domain: This is identical to the both the work and vanity address-type address, but is not looks more like an organisation or business and is not (obviously) tied to an individual (or family).