FastMail owns fastmail.COM?!

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by FredOnline

Get yourselves a domain and use Fastmail with it.

I own multiple domains that I've set up with FM, but sometimes I just want to use an alias with one of their domains... for a lot of reasons... I'm sure we could list a dozen or more reasons between us... there's a certain anonymity but also increased legitimacy to be frank, to use a good, professional domain from the email service provider, depending on the scenario. It gives that one more layer of distance from a personal connection that is preferable, for me, in some situations.

For an easy example, on Craigslist, there is no way I want to use my own business domain names for some transactions -- even though I may have privacy features enabled by my registrar for my domain... that's a whole world of difference compared to using a generic, but respectable domain from my email provider. It sends a different kind of message...

Also, for some mailing lists I'm on I'd much rather have them run through a FM domain than one of my own... that goes for some non-business oriented communications in general I have with different groups.

All that is just personal preference of course, and your own needs will obviously be different than mine. But having FastMail.COM will be a welcome addition for so many scenarios...

And yes, it's minor for technical users like most of us in this forum... but it will definitely make a big difference to my technically-challenged friends and family that don't feel comfortable with a .FM or a "lame" .COM.

FastMail.COM sounds 10X more respectable, and 100X more memorable IMO, and frankly, this was a long time coming for FM, and I think it will pay solid business dividends for them. And that's a good thing for us too, since that means that FM may have just increased their longer-term business solvency with this acquisition.

My two bits only.

[B4its2L8]

Of course, FM has for some time had the "fastmail.net" option available for those who want the "FM" provider name with a more 'acceptable' tld.

[pjwalsh]

Very pleased FM was able to acquire fastmail.com. I remember reading the post here where a user noted it was actually available for registration; someone jumped on it, and certainly didn't make good use of it. I do hope it will be made readily available to current users, and not 'cordoned' off for a separately branded, corporate, or 'lux' priced new service.

I'm interested in how / what others find "lame" about sent.com? It's service neutral, short, easily communicated verbally, and has the widely accepted .com TLD.

I'm from that era when more 'desireable' FastMail domains were available at Full level or higher (eg. sent.com). This won't be a popular opinion, but I wouldn't be adverse to fastmail.com being similarly available at some minimal subscription level, if for no other reason than to avoid a 'land rush'.

[Hlao-roo]

Originally Posted by B4its2L8

Of course, FM has for some time had the "fastmail.net" option available for those who want the "FM" provider name with a more 'acceptable' tld.

.net domains are so 1996. If anything, .co carries greater cachet now.

[lane]

Originally Posted by Hlao-roo

.net domains are so 1996. If anything, .co carries greater cachet now.

Only if you live in Colombia.

[g4mby]

Originally Posted by Hlao-roo

If anything, .co carries greater cachet now.

Um, no. .co is a country domain that has no relevance to where I live.

I'm only interested in .com, .net and .co.uk (as I live in the UK). I don't feel that anything else, apart from my own domain which ends with .me.uk, is really relevant to me or my usage of the internet any more.

[danieldk]

Originally Posted by g4mby

Um, no. .co is a country domain that has no relevance to where I live.

I'm only interested in .com, .net and .co.uk (as I live in the UK). I don't feel that anything else, apart from my own domain which ends with .me.uk, is really relevant to me or my usage of the internet any more.

Well, .eu covers you then as well .

[me0000]

FM should consider adding fastmail.uk as it is now available

[downthemall]

Originally Posted by danieldk

Well, .eu covers you then as well .

Not if UK quits the EU.

[randian]

Originally Posted by downthemall

Not if UK quits the EU.

I doubt they would force you to give up ownership of a .EU domain if that happened.

[ankupan]

any idea ! when it will be added to alias list ?

[Hlao-roo]

Originally Posted by lane

Only if you live in Colombia.

Not taking country code domains literally has long been an accepted practice, as bit.ly and vine.co can attest. I'm sure FastMail has at least one or two users bearing a fastmail.fm address who don't live in the Federated States of Micronesia.

[paleolith]

Originally Posted by B4its2L8

Just thinkin' that FM could save themselves a bit of $$ if they jettisoned a goodly number of the lesser used domains and bought a few better ones.

At less than $10/year/domain, they would not save much.

I have my own domain, but when my sister converted to FM recently, she used letterboxes.org. I suppose one issue for me is that I prefer an address where the domain represents some affiliation for me. I'm not currently associated except in minor ways with any company, school, or organization -- just my personal and self-employed consulting use. Thus my own domain. I don't want a fastmail.com address any more than I want a gmail.com or aol.com address.

I don't know the history of the domain name. I know that back in the early 1990s, there was a Fastmail package that ran on Windows networks, only did local email, and used a proprietary format. It's long dead, though I don't know exactly when it died -- I can't even find any information about it on Wikipedia. I have wondered if they had the fastmail.com domain and held on to it until hell froze over, but I find nothing to support this idea.

Looking in archive.org, the first time a web page appears under fastmail.com is in Dec 1998 and was for the South Valley Internet Web Farm, an early hosting provider in Santa Clara County, California. By early 2000, it was redirecting to fastweb.com, which claims to be a scholarship search service. That's where it sat until about a month ago.

Edward

[Bahb]

Originally Posted by FredOnline

Honestly, all this creeping is embarrassing.

Get yourselves a domain and use Fastmail with it.

I read earlier on here that $10 a year maintains owned domains. Where does that happen? I've owned my own since 1996, at first for $50 a year. It kept creeping down until it was just $9.95 a year. Then hosting companies began dropping out and/or merging and the price per year began creeping up until now it's $25 a year plus $6.95 a quarter for Forwarding to Fastmail. Where is it $10 a year?

[danieldk]

Originally Posted by Bahb

I read earlier on here that $10 a year maintains owned domains. Where does that happen? I've owned my own since 1996, at first for $50 a year. It kept creeping down until it was just $9.95 a year. Then hosting companies began dropping out and/or merging and the price per year began creeping up until now it's $25 a year plus $6.95 a quarter for Forwarding to Fastmail. Where is it $10 a year?

https://www.namecheap.com/ ?

(Note: I don't endorse them, I am a happy Gandi customer.)