Dump Gmail for Outlook.com? Four reasons you might

Takeaway: Microsoft’s Gmail competitor has finally arrived. You might be surprised to learn that it brings some useful innovations to webmail. Here are the big four.

Microsoft now has a big-time Gmail competitor. Before you chuckle and say “that only took eight years,” keep in mind that Gmail is largely the same product that Google launched in 2004 — with some nice incremental tweaks to improve the user interface.

Microsoft wants to inject some innovation into webmail again — and it looks like they may have pulled it off. On Tuesday, the company unveiled Outlook.com, which is both its successor to Hotmail as well as its enhanced webmail for individual business professionals. It draws on Hotmail, Microsoft Exchange, and the Metro UI from Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8.

Based on my look at the working preview of Outlook.com that Microsoft has already released into the wild as well as an interview with one of Microsoft’s product leads on Outlook.com, I think there are four reasons why some users — especially professionals — will be legitimately tempted to make the switch from Gmail.

1. Automatic folders

The best new innovation in Outlook.com is what I like to call its “automatic folders” feature. The system attempts to smartly sort some of your mail for you by automatically creating virtual folders for common stuff like email newsletters, Facebook and Twitter alerts, and other repetitive messages that can end up burying more important emails from human beings you actually need to correspond with. Obviously, since this is run by an algorithm, there will certainly be some false positives and negatives and you might have to tweak it, but I like the low-touch nature of this feature. Microsoft has also tried to streamline the process of setting up your own inbox rules as well in Outlook.com.

In his blog post about the new service, Microsoft’s Chris Jones summed up the feature. “Outlook.com automatically sorts your messages from contacts, newsletters, shipping updates, and social updates,” wrote Jones, “and with our Sweep features you can move, delete and set up powerful rules in a few, simple clicks so you can more quickly get to the email you really want.”

Another mail management feature that I like in Outlook.com is that you can hover over a message and get a set of actions to delete the message or flag it as important or sort it to a folder — and you can even customize the functions you want to see on the hover-over.

2. Mobile experience

The biggest benefit that Microsoft has in designing a new webmail service in 2012 is that it can optimize it for today’s intensely-mobile world.

“The way people do mail on their mobile phone tends to be a little different,” said Brian Hall, General Manager of Windows Live and Internet Explorer. “They don’t do as much mail management.”

With that in mind, Microsoft used the automatic folder feature as its way of helping organize and prioritize users’ inboxes in a way that can work in virtually any type of desktop or mobile email client.

“Most people on a phone or tablet use the native mail client,” said Hall. “In those instances you want to make sure you work with any inbox. It’s a different approach than Priority Inbox from Google because they have to go create clients for mobile or else it breaks Priority Inbox.”

Hall also stressed that Microsoft is focused on delivering an excellent mobile web experience. In fact, the company is so focused on the native client and mobile web experience of Outlook.com that it doesn’t currently have plans to build an app for Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 7. ”It works beautifully with the native client,” said Hall.

On the other hand, he said they are working on an Android app, because “Android devices are less likely to have an Exchange ActiveSync client.”

3. Privacy protection

One of the creepiest parts of Gmail has always been the fact that it does text-mining on your emails and uses that information to surface targeted ads. That’s the price you pay for unlimited storage and a free service. For example, if you’re emailing back-and-forth with a family member about a trip to go hiking, Gmail will simultaneously surface text ads for things like Rocky Mountain vacations, hiking boots, and protein bars. While these ads are generally unobtrusive and occasionally even useful, it still freaks out some people to realize that Google is essentially “reading their mail.” This is especially true for business professionals and others who use email to transmit potentially valuable or sensitive information.

Capitalizing on this uneasiness, Microsoft is promising that Outlook.com will not do text-mining on your inbox, while still offering its service for free and with “virtually unlimited storage.”

“We don’t scan your email content or attachments and sell this information to advertisers or any other company, and we don’t show ads in personal conversations,” Jones stated.

That doesn’t mean Outlook.com won’t have ads. There are right-column ads on the main inbox screen, but there aren’t ads on individual messages. Also, I’m sure these ads are going to be targeted based on what Microsoft knows about you in general, just not on the content of your individual messages.

4. Social integration

One of my favorite plug-ins for Gmail is Rapportive, which fills the right column in Gmail with contact information about the person you’re emailing. It draws that information from LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook (once you’ve logged in to those services) and will even show you the LinkedIn job title and latest status updates from the contact you’re emailing.

Microsoft has taken this kind of functionality and built it directly into Outlook.com, filling the right column of its message screen with this same kind of social contact data, but displaying it in a little bit simpler, cleaner way that follows the Metro UI style. Outlook.com doesn’t appear to show quite as much data as Rapportive.

However, Microsoft has taken social integration a step further. You can not only view people in your social networks from within Outlook.com and see their latest updates, but from the “People hub” you can also respond to status updates on Twitter and write on someone’s Facebook wall, all directly from Outlook.com. You can also do Facebook chat within Outlook.com. The instant messaging functionality itself is another strong feature of Outlook.com. The implementation is certainly better integrated and more usable than GTalk in Gmail.

Bottom line

Hall said Microsoft was focused on several key priorities in Outlook.com: ”Clean UI, design for tablets and all devices, connected with the services you actually use (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), works great with [Microsoft] Office and SkyDrive, and actually prioritizes your privacy.”

Before I took a look at Outlook.com, I couldn’t imagine that there was much Microsoft could do to innovate in webmail, and I expected it to feel like a desperate late attempt to make Hotmail relevant by copying Gmail. While Outlook.com is definitely aimed squarely at Gmail, I was surprised at how fresh it feels. There’s some really useful innovation in there, and I think it’s really smart for Microsoft to go after Google on privacy. It means Outlook.com won’t be nearly as powerful of a money-maker as Gmail, but it could build some needed goodwill from users.

I also like that Microsoft isn’t afraid to admit that this is aimed directly at stealing some of Gmail’s thunder. Hall said, ”If you’re a heavy Google Docs or a Google+ user, then Gmail is probably for you. Otherwise, if you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Office, then Outlook [dot com] is better.”

10 timesaving tricks for working with Outlook message templates

10 timesaving tricks for working with Outlook message templates

Takeaway: You can save a lot of time and effort if you use templates in Outlook — and you can save even more time and effort if you put these template techniques to work.

If you send the same information or use the same styles and formatting repeatedly, don’t re-create the effort every time you send an email. Create a template and base new messages on it. You’ll save time and reduce potential input errors. These tips will help you put templates to work for you.

1: Create a message template

Message templates let you create and store information you send regularly. Creating template files for reuse is an easy process:

1. Open a new message.
2. Add the text and apply styles and formatting.
3. Click the File tab or the Office button.
4. Choose Save As in the left pane.
5. From the Save As Type drop-down, choose Outlook Template (*.oft).
6. Click Save and Outlook will save the template file to the default folder.

To use an existing template, do the following:

1. In the Mail window, click the Home tab, choose More Items from the New Items drop-down in the New group, and then select Choose Forms from the resulting submenu. In Outlook 2007, select Choose Form from the New option’s drop-down.
2. From the Look In drop-down, select User Templates In File System.
3. Double-click the template or select it and click Open.
4. Make the necessary changes to update the message and click Send as you normally would.

2: Draft a template

Opening a template, while more efficient than re-creating the message, takes several steps. Another option is to save your basic message in the Drafts folder. Then, double-click the message in the Drafts folder, complete it, and click Forward to send it. (If you send it as usual, Outlook will delete the message from the Drafts folder.)

You’ll save a few steps, but this tip works best with limited messages. In addition, a message in the Drafts folder is easy to delete. It’s a great shortcut, but use it wisely.

3: Avoid double signatures

When creating template files, don’t save a manually entered signature with the template if you have an auto signature enabled. Outlook has no way of knowing that the text at the bottom of your template message is a signature. Your messages will end up with two signatures. There’s no workaround; delete the text signature from the template or disable the auto signature.

4: Use a Quick Step

Templates aren’t the only way to access stock messages. You can create a Quick Step (new to Outlook 2010) instead. Click the Home tab and then do the following:

1. In the Quick Steps group, choose the Create New option.
2. Enter a name for the new Quick Step.
3. From the Choose An Action drop-down, select New Message in the Respond section.
4. Click Show Options.
5. Enter the template text.
6. From the Shortcut Key drop-down, select a predefined shortcut, if you want one.
7. Click Finish.

To use the Quick Step message as a template, select it from the options in the Quick Steps group — selecting it will open the generic message. At this point, you can fill in any remaining information before sending.

5: Add templates to the 2010 Ribbon

If you have several templates, add a custom group to the Ribbon for easy access. The first thing you need is a macro; use the following sub procedure as a guide:

Sub OpenCustomTemplate()

  'Open template from a macro button

  'added to the ribbon.

  Set myFolder = Session.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)

  Set myItem = myFolder.Items.Add("IPM.Form.NewsletterTemplate")

  myItem.Display

End Sub

Update the Set myItem statement to reflect the name of your template but keep the IPM.Form component (that’s the class). With the macro in place, add a custom group to the Ribbon as follows:

1. Click the File tab and then click Options under Help in the left pane.
2. Select Customize Ribbon in the left pane.
3. Click New Group, choose Rename, enter a name such as Templates, and click OK. By default, Outlook will position the new group at the end of the Ribbon. You can use the arrows to the right to move it.
4. With the new Templates group still selected, choose All Commands from the Choose Commands drop-down and select Macros.
5. Select your macro and click Add.
6. Right-click the macro (in the Templates group now), choose Rename, and enter a short, but descriptive name.
7. Click OK.

Outlook will place a Templates group on the Home tab, as shown in Figure A.

Figure A

Add a new group for templates to the Ribbon.

6: Add a shortcut to the Quick Access Toolbar

If you don’t want to customize the Ribbon, you can customize the Quick Access Toolbar, as follows:

1. Choose More Commands from the QAT drop-down.
2. Choose Macros from the Choose Commands drop-down.
3. Select your macro.
4. Click Add.
5. Click OK.

7: Insert from a Word template

So far, all the tips have dealt with opening a template, completing it, and then sending it. But sometimes you’ll need a different route. For instance, you might want to insert existing styles from another template or HTML code for a banner. You can quickly do so as follows:

1. Click the Insert tab and then click Attach File in the Include group.
2. Locate the template file and select it but don’t click Open yet!
3. From the Insert drop-down, click Insert As Text. Doing so will insert the template’s contents into the body of your email instead of attaching the document to it.

This route is helpful when accessing data from a non-Outlook template.

8: Reply via a template

Have you ever needed to reply to several messages using the same information? For instance, let’s suppose you sent an invitation to several people. Using a rule and a template, you can acknowledge everyone’s response or send more up-to-date information. First, create the template and save it as you normally would (#1). Then, launch the rule wizard and apply the Reply Using A Specific Template action, specifying the appropriate template. (The wizard will hold your hand through the entire process.)

If you already have a number of messages you should respond to, move them to a new blank folder. Then, select that folder before you create the rule. After setting up all the conditions and actions, the wizard will let you run the rule on all the messages in the current folder.

9: Take a shortcut

If you use a template frequently, work from a shortcut on your Desktop. To create the shortcut, use Windows Explorer to navigate to the templates folder. In Windows XP, it’s probably C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. In Windows 7, try C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates. Right-click the file in Windows Explorer and choose Create Shortcut. Windows will create a copy of the file in the current folder. Right-click the copy and choose Send To and then select Desktop from the resulting submenu.

Double-click the shortcut on your Desktop to open the template in a message window. Complete the message, click Send, and you’re done. You won’t even have to close Outlook to complete the task.

10: Jump it!

Windows 7 lets you pin files, including Outlook templates, to the taskbar — what’s known as its jump list. Using Windows Explorer, find the template (see #9) and drag the .oft file to the Windows taskbar. To use this item, right-click the Outlook icon on the taskbar and choose the template from Outlook’s jump list.

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