Not to suggest that either the general population is behind-the-times or that the tech community is ahead-of-the-game, but the release of this article today, which was featured on the Canadian version of MSN’s homepageÂ? in one of the most prominent locations, is just baffling! Now don’t get me wong, I think it’s a great improvement on the original Hotmail webmail, and there are some interesting features as far as drag-and-drop and synchronization are concerned. However, this article, at least in my opinion, is not only too late, but it fails to take into account the fact that Gmail and Yahoo! Mail Beta are both easily as good, if not better, than this new version.

I know that it was on MSN’s site, and I know that Hotmail is probably the dominant free e-mail of choice in Canada, but the article isn’t really objective at all.Â? I can appreciate the fact that journalism doesn’t necessarily have to be objective, and the article is still informative, but it also illustrates the ever-growingÂ? gap between the common user and the tech community. Many of the people I talked to after the YouTube deal had little or no experience with the website, at least that they knew of. When I showed someone Google’s Ajax-based maps, they had no idea they could drag the map around, and I won’t even start on when people find out about Google Earth. With allÂ? the worry around the Web 2.0 bubble, new companies need to make sure they aren’t developing something that makes the techies oooh and ahhh, but the rest of the world won’tÂ? understand or need.

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