Excite Email Outsourcing

Sorry folks...I have been missing for a bit. I was on a long EU trip (few weeks) and am just now getting unburied from email and projects now back in the states.

This was some news posted to an email group we are a part of. We have permission to re-post the thoughts here. I did edit it down and used those blurry TV pixles to protect the innocent ;)

The good news:

Some of you know that our friends at Excite have been operating without an email department and without any dedicated resources which has necessitated duck-taping and band-aiding all of our issues for years. Today, Excite is in the process of outsourcing their webmail to a company by the name of BlueTie. 
We don’t know how many of you have heard of them, so they included the following links to us:

http://bluetie.com/aboutus/index.php
http://bluetie.com/aboutus/pressroom/pr2008-04-16-01.php

Our friends there are very happy about this news and to have dedicating time and effort into improving and running their webmail.

The bad news:

That being said, they wanted to let us know some of the changes. BlueTie will host Excite's mail servers and the web pages. They will NOT handle their abuse or customer service. This will be maintained by Excite. They will be handling their spam filtering and white/black list. They do not have any details as to how they do this other than it is proprietary to BlueTie  We do know, however, they do NOT have a feedback loop program. Excite has recommended that BlueTie do so and that it be in ARF format, but do not know if they will heed this advice. They have also advised them to look into joining the many people that participate in many of the anti-spam groups.

Therefore, as of the cut-over date, anyone who currently is whitelisted with Excite will no longer have this benefit. In addition, all feedback loops will cease.  To date, Excite has received only an email address that I can NOT share here for email admins to send their wishes to. They expect email to start moving over within the next few days and it will take about a month to move everything.  This, of course, depends on how smoothly it all goes. If you have a feedback loop today, Excite plans on sending a similar letter to everyone that is currently on their feedback loop.

If you feel the need to send an email over to BlueTie and are NOT an email admin, feel free to post your comments/wishes here to tell them they NEED to have a feedback loop. We here at deliveryability.com will then compile all of these and send them over.

-Dennis
Eloqua

Comments

[Christopher Nixon]

Hi Dennis,

I would argue that BlueTie needs to provide a Feedback Loop mechanism (ideally in ARF format) to the sender community for the following reasons:

FBL data provides senders with visibility and ultimately the more visibility ISP's / receivers provide to senders regarding their recipient complaints, the greater the understanding the sender community has of why they are facing email deliverability challenges. The knock on effect of all this is that by suppressing complaining parties from their databases, senders no longer annoy the complaining parties and their overall email deliverability improves….well…as long as they’re following all of the other best practices!

Furthermore, complaining parties are happy that they are no longer receiving email communications from senders that they either did not sign up to or that were lacking relevancy.

Ultimately the receiver is happy with the level of service and security provided by the ISP and as a result maintains their relationship with the ISP on an ongoing basis.

Everyone's a winner!

Kind Regards,

Chris Nixon.

[Tiffany Daniel]

As current members of the Excite FBL, this is definitely important information. Thanks for sharing.

[Josie Walls]

Hi Dennis,

Thank you for this information.

I'm concerned that if clients are not receiving FBL data they will start to see an increase in deliverability issues at Excite.

It would be ideal if Bluetie could implement a feedback loop in ARF format so that clients can remove recipients that wish to unsubscribe from their lists.

Additionally, any guidelines and/or links to webforms or information on this topic that Bluetie can share would be greatly appreciated.

Kindest Regards,

Josie Walls

[Daniel]

I sent an email from a gmail account to my excite account a few hours ago, and haven't received anything.

I wonder if this trade will works for me :S

[Christopher Nixon]

I'm sure that if BlueTie decide against implementing a FBL system then our friends at ReturnPath will 'grab a hold of the reins' so to speak.

[lilkunta]

I'm confused as to what a FBL and ARB is.

I'm writing as an excite email user. I do not at all like this blue tie switch. This past Fri 4 July 8 the inbox changed. I dont like it at all. It looks like Microsoft Outlook which I dont like either. Multiple messages can no longer be sorted, moved or deleted because the boxes on the left are gone. Instead each individual message must be right clicked. I have no mouse so this is very very tedious!
Any chance to end this?

[matt]

i cant access my excite email at all.
anyone with me?

[matt]

i cant access my excite email at all.
anyone with me?

[Blue Noose]

You don't have to worry about deliverablity issues with the migration to BlueTie. The migration is not smooth and the new email client/server is a mess. I doubt they will ever put humpty dumpty together again.

[Chuck S]

I can't get Excite email to load since the change to the Blue Tie system.

One would think that some system testing would have taken place.

This had better get fied really quickly.

[Lori Ramotar]

I have 3 excite accounts, 2 of them I use for business, and I haven't been able to access them all day today. I have been with Excite for a long time, and like that I rarely get junk mail with them, but this may be the last straw. If this isn't fixed soon, I am leaving for good. I use FireFox, if that means anything.

[magpie]

I can't get into my email either. The change over is a nightmare. After years with excite, I'll probably leave because of this.

[Ashlei]

I also haven't been able to access my Excite email since Sunday morning.

What a terrible mess!

But of course, have you ever known anything good to come from OUTSOURCING anything!

[Linda]

I've been unable to access my excite account for two days. I wrote to Excite on their help page, and went to www.bluetie.com and as a first introduction to their company, I'm not impressed. I asked them for a reply, then hahaha of course I can't read my email. Just like the poster above, I've had enough of Excite. Sure, we get what we pay for, but Excite is paid based on being able to advertise to me. The revenue stream is stopped for two days (so far), both Excite and Blue Tie have bad press, and the user community is experiencing varying degrees of displeasure, with the ultimate on the horizon - abandoning Excite.

[Bill Gilbrook]

After a decade with Excite Mail I may be calling it quits. I don't think I want to live with this "Blue-Tie" thingy. I want to continue with a free web-based Email system that I can use w/o a hitch anywhere in the world. I'll look at Foxfire as suggested above. Any others?

[artbb]

Same problems with the new Excite as everyone else. Today has been a 'little' better in that I have been able to get in and see my emails listed and actually read 1 or 2 before it locks up. I have tried IE and Firefox and it doesn't make a difference. I got a new ymail account since yahoo opened up a new domain I was able to get my same prefix. I am starting the migration over to them and changing my subscriptions and once I can actually get into excite I will move my contacts. Been with excite for over 10 years but I am done with them now. I can't stand the new interface either. Is there a way to switch back to 'classic' excite mode or anything like there is with yahoo or hotmail?

[Spike]

Excite's new email system is awful, and a primary example of the old adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. They have violated what should be the most important guideline of software design: usability. Keep it simple, stupid. This is slow, clumsy, takes up too much real estate, and has bells and whistles I don't care about or need. It is also a security risk, as there seems to be no way to delete an email without 'previewing' it.
I don't have the time to learn how to use their new system. If it doesn't revert back in a week I'll get rid of my account and use gmail.

Spike

[Cliff]

I can get into the new e-mail system, but there is no mail flowing into my inbox. I have not received an e-mail since July 4 at 9:00 AM. That makes it 123 hours without any mail.

The worst part is there is no one to "talk" to about the problem. I really hole all the incoming mail is being spooled for delivery.

Cliff

[Jocelyn]

Please I want my old format Excite email. I still in disbelieve that Excite did not even made a beta to share with us and to use it as a tool for real improvement with satisfaction of all of us.

Can I get back to the old format PLEASE?

[Jesse]

BlueTie... you are a f***ing disgrace. Gee... I really hated being able to check and manage all my email accounts through excite flawlessly for 12+ years. I'm so "excite"d to have all my customers emails bouncing back to them and having websites I do business with alerting me that my email account is no longer valid. I'd recommend switching over to a much better and more reliable yahoo... or set up forwarding there.. but they'll probably get bought out and microsfot will ruin that too. Excite, for you todo this to your loyal supporters makes you the worst, most irresponsible company in the history of the net. The new email system sucks worse than hearing Celine Dion sing. I can't think of a worse analogy.

[Mike]

You HAVE friends at Excite? Ouch. That's GOT to be about the WORST company ever. Absolutely useless followers that fail on ever front. And I was part of the key team that developed the initial branding - they were poor then and only got worse over time. The only thing amazing about them is that they still exist.
Oh, and please don't bother trying to respond to me for a response, I'm using unreachable excitemail.

[SS]

I also have been using excite mail for a looooong time. It is hard for me to swtich to new address since this is THE main email address for me. The new excite mail sucks. Whenre should I start? I can only see 50 mails per page. It is slow. When i click to one email, the new window opens. I hate it. Whoever decided to do this, I hate you too!

[johnwebbsr]

I can not understand how Excite made such a monumental blunder by changing up their mail service. For a tech company to make a untested change in such a critical service is not acceptable. All of the business cards, letterheads and other email records are now rendered useless.

[micah1_8]

It wasn't broke. They "fixed" it. The e-mail system, to me, was always excite's strongest feature. It loaded quickly, was easy to use, even had a fairly effective spam block system. It worked in Opera. I had no trouble loading it on my linux box. It even pulled up relatively swiftly on dial-up. Now...

[Cal Gal]

My excite email HAS BEEN my primary email account since 1997. Since the change over, I won't even use it. It SUCKS big time. I can't stand it. The Excite folks need to hear us LOUD & CLEAR or else Excite will be the next IndyMac!

[Excitesucks]

Am sitting here thinking am the only one in this mess. I hate the new system, it sucks and just like most people here, am thinking of quitting excite very soon

[Carly]

The "new" excite is soooo bad that I can't even grab my contact list to move it to my new home over at Hotmail. After 10+ years with excite I'm leaving. This mess they call improvement is a catastrophy! When I complained about the new look they answered that they would not have "Classic" email. I imagine that people are abandoning excite by the thousands. It's just sad that they didn't care enough about us long time users. Someone in charge over there needs to be fired.

[Bill]

Although Excite wasn't my primary e-mail address I liked it features. The new configuration is Tongue-and Hog(Blue)Tied. It has lost its appeal and flexibility.
And based on several other comments, it has lost many of its subscribers. It is no longer "Excite"ing.

[Thomas]

This is just horrible. Lost most of the information in my contacts list. The least EXCITE could have done was warned us and let us backup our email contact info.

GMAIL is starting to look really nice.

What unwise "okay IDIOTS" made this decision?

[Barbara]

The new Excite mail probgram is a total disaster. I don't see anything about it that I like, nothing. In fact, it could not be worse. I am an eBay seller and am now in a living nightmare with all my eBay messages in a mess. The recent ones I've
checked so far have no reply/return addresses, there is no subject, there is no longer a body
message and they are marked as being sent as an attachemtn where none of these was ever sent as an attachemnt. That is just one problem. When I get over this shock I will be out of there.

[rick1]

What a HORRIBLE new system. I have been with excite for... wow... probably 10+ years. This new e-mail apllication takes forever to load, is awkward to use, and the e-mail viewing box is soo small, you need to constantly move the mouse to figure out what's going on. Plus, when you decide to read an e-mail, it either takes forever to load or doesn't load at all (an error message comes up). Are we back to 1995 or is this 2008?!?!? This is the worst switch I've ever seen in the history of the internet and needs to be fixed or Excite is doomed.

[Dru]

I HATE the new excite! I've used excite since I first got online, it was my first privet email, that wasn't my dad's email account. I've been happy with excite since I was 12, and now the bastards turn on me! I can't read a single thing with the tiny windows, to be able to read anything I have to click and open a new window, and I hate that! WTF is wrong with them?! There was nothing wrong! It worked fine! I clicked a email, the email opened! End of story! No fucking tiny little unusable windows and popup windows!

It's like outlook, I HATE outlook! Yahoo tried to do this to me too, but at least they let me keep the normal, sane interface! What the HELL was excite thinking doing this?!

[Shaun]

Hi Dennis,

Thankyou for the pointers to Blue Tie. Wandering through their site and a few spare hours searching the net has proved educational, to say the least.

Not withstanding your amusing comment on Excite's patching up of its email system over the years, it has always been my experience that no matter to what far-flung and wretched hole on this earth my job would take me, as long as I could get some form of useable dialup service I could always connect to Excite's email system. This could not be said of Netscape, Yahoo or Hotmail, so this is mainly why I have stayed with Excite through some 10 years.

So these past couple of weeks have in a way been kinda sad as it has marked the end of my ties with Excite.

With my few hours of research on Blue Tie it was simply a no-brainer for me to transfer my contacts (always backed-up to my Palm) to other email servers.

For those Excite members who are complaining about the slow loading, it appears that you will always be downloading some 1.4mb of code each time you attempt to access you Excite email account.

For those members who's computers continue to refuse to load the email application you should take comfort in the knowledge that your security software is doing its job. This appears to be the basic reason the application will not load on Macs.

For those members who do not like the new email application for whatever reason, I suggest you do what I have done and simply abandon Excite to the tides of fate. Life is too short to get upset at the results of bumbling and incompetent management of an internet portal.

Thanks again Dennis for your links and the space to comment.

Have a great day,

Shaun.

[Phyllis Erwin]

I HATE THIS FORMAT. I DON'T GET HALF MY MAIL NOW!!! I WILL CHANGE MY EMAIL TO ANOTHER EMAIL SYSTEM. I WANT MY OLD EMAIL FORMAT BACK NOW!!!

[Fiona]

I have had the new email for about a week. The first day, I couldn't load the application at all, despite (reluctantly ) adjusting my security settings even more than usual. Excite is not liked by Spyareblaster and Spybot Search and Destroy in the first place! Today, "the application" will not load beyond 48% at all. I'm awaiting important mail, and now, after 12 years with this email account, I, too, will be ditching it. Can't believe they did this without beta testing widely first, and it just happened to me without warning. I'm disgusted. I've already sent some form with my comments, to get a message saying that I won't be replied to. Sheesh!

[Le]

This new email service is horrible. I've had email accounts with Excite for 9 years and NO PROBLEMS. Now, there are nothing but problems. I cannot download anything and YES, my connection is fine. And NO, it is not because of Zone Alarm. Yes, Excite is at fault and NO, they do not respond to my queries or comments. I can neither receive or retrieve emails and if this isn't fixed soon, I'm dumping Excite permanently. What a disappointment!

[Linda]

This is the most frustrating and useless exercise I've ever seen. They should fire the IDIOTS who suggested, planned, and implemented this stupid idea, and anyone who objected should be promoted to stop the stupidity. How f**king stupid can these people be? I'm leaving excite. I cannot get to me email (now they f**ked up the pws). I'm calling everyone who used that email and telling them my new gmail account. What a complete waste of my time. I haven't been able to access excite for over a week. Garbage, garbage. This is the end of excite. Someone should anonymously publish the names of the idiots who allowed this to happen so if they apply to our companies, we can stop them from destroying our systems next.

[We The People]

This is the real story.
And yes IWon and MyWay are screwed too.

Here is an example list of the sites that these morons are...recognise any virus laden/over advertising/plain old scumbags on the list? I sure do!

Zwinky
Smiley Central
Webfetti
Popular Screensavers
My Fun Cards
Cursor Mania

Can you say Fisher-Price?

[We The People]

Read for yourself:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS193135+16-Apr-2008+BW20080416

[We The People]

Wanna let yourself be heard?

These are the two circus tents...

BlueTie, Inc.
Jennifer Balon, 585-586-2000 x1076
jbalon@bluetie.com

IAC Consumer Applications & Portals
Tim Allen, 914-826-2532
tallen@iacccap.com

[Henry]

It chews! I'm in "dial-up hell" and this is just a slap in the face. My family was using it, not anymore.

It usually boils down to saving a dollar, but with crap like this they will probably lose more.

I now have to figure out how to retrieve what I was keeping.
If I don't do it soon enough I will lose it all. Nice system, 10 years of promoting their great email has come around to kick me in the head.
Any suggestions for a new "dial-up" friendly email?

[Ian]

I agree with all these comments. I can't believe that excite would not run anything by its faithful users before completely raping them. I sent an email to excite (more like a "feedback" type of form) and the next page that opened up said something to the effect of "we've been getting a lot of emails, and may not be able to respond to all of them. Excite has changed it's email system and there will be no way to switch between the old interface and the new."
-Nice thinking on your part, excite.

[Martin]

After being with Excite for over 5 years, spending 5 minutes on this poor excuse for an upgrade is more than enough. The old layout was much more preferable with easy ways to personalise your pages and deal with spam emails. This new one is just a total mess trying to navigate around it. It's so bad i've decided to delete my addresses and switch to gmail instead.

[pat]

I've had an excite account for years and fear I'm going to have to move. The interface is terrible.
agghhhhh

[ks]

This new email by Excite is crappola -- totally unusable and crowded and slow as hell!! I hate it!!! I use Mozilla and it will not download it -- I have to use Internet Explorer to get my mail...and then you have to wait while it loads each page. I have DSL and it's even slow -- Can't even imagine dial up users -- they may never get their mail. I say Excite -- this BITES!!!

[DeCristo]

The new excite format sucks! I tried to access my email tonight and it required my to enter a password, at first it told me I timed out so I tried again and it told me my password was incorrect and I know it is not! I made the mistake of signing off my personal excite home page and now I can't get back on because my password is incorrect. So I can't not only access my email but I also can't access my personal home page. Get with it Excite...I have vital information contained within your website that I need...what a total cluster F@#K this upgrade has been.

[vinnie]

I have been a long time excite email user. I agree with everyone else on here. The new service is horrendous. It is extremely slow and takes forever to load. If this isnt reverted back to the previous or more acceptable mode, I too, will move on to using another service for my email despite the inconvenience it will cause to change.

[Smithy]

I, too, have been using excite mail since 1998 and have many important personal and business folders and accounts. After having problems loading e-mail, accessing the page at all --- today I tried to empty the trash and it emptied my in box. I have sent feedback to their forms, but they come back undelivered.

This is not good.

[Aaron]

I have used excite mail for over a decade but after this latest snafu I'm gone. What a pain it will be to tell all my contacts about a new email.

I guess all good things must come to an end.

[obplayer]

I use Excite for my business, but now I lost all my messages from my Inbox and all my folders. I had huge amounts of business correspondence in their, now it is GONE!!! I am pi*******ssed

[ron hoffman]

delete one email at a time is crazy. it will take me an hour to delete one weeks worth. bye bye excite.

[FRANK]

I CANNOT GET TO MY EMAIL ON MY COMPUTER BUT I CAN DO IT AT THE LIBRARY.
IT IS AWFUL AND A BIT SETBACK FROM THE OLD SYSTEM. BLUE TIE TAKES LONGER. YOU CAN NOT JUST CHECK OFF ALL DELETES OR SPAMS - BUT MUST LOOK AT THEM ONE BY ONE AND DELETE EACH.

[Chilly Al]

Hi Dennis,
Here is what I have sent Excite:
Windows Vista, Dual 1.73 processors, 1 gig of ram, Explorer 7, pop-up blocker off, virus protection is not causing an issue:

WHERE ARE MY E-MAILS? I HAVE ALLOWED ALL E-MAILS FROM INFOCOM.ORG, ICIA.COM, ICIA.ORG AND FACEBOOK.COM DOMAINS AND I AM NOT RECEIVING NEW E-MAILS! I AM UNBELIEVABLY UPSET ABOUT THIS! FIX IT! FIX IT! FIX IT! FIRE BLUETIE!

You can send a response to "removed" and you can attempt to copy me at my excite account "remoced"@excite.com

DID I MENTION: FIX IT AND GO BACK TO THE OLD E-MAIL IF YOU CANNOT?! THE COMPANY I WORK FOR PRIDES ITSELF ON CUSTOMER SERVICE!

Dear Excite Representative,

By the way, I nearly forgot: (See additional comments below and the reference to the initial e-mail.) I would really appreciate a detailed response.

5. I previously was able to open two instances of my e-mail account at the same time and now I am having issues with that, while one instance closes. (Not Good!)

6. Vista was able to handle your previous interface and now I am forced to "allow all pop-ups from your site. (Also Not Good!)

7. Composing new e-mails and opening drafts in a small, new window is also not desireable!

8. Please allow us to change the color scheme as before.

9. Where are the instructions or any notices about the additional domain we have been assigned? (I read the entire FAQ prior to submitting this message.) Apparently I have been assigned "removed"@roc2.bluetie.com
(?).

10. Have you seen how your e-mail saved in "Drafts" is spaced after it has been saved and re-opened? Who's brilliant idea was this anyway? Who is in charge of yours or Bluetie's quallity control?

I would not be adverse to being a beta tester for Excite e-mail. I EMPLORE YOU TO CHANGE THE NEW E-MAIL AS IT IS AWEFUL! Please read this entire e-mail and present it at your mettings and provide it to your supervisors.

06/28/08: The reference number for your submission is '080628-008148'

Dear Excite Representative,

I was so looking forward to the new e-mail interface and services however after attempting to use them today I can firmly say that the new system is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE!!!

1. It is much slower than the old interface and login!

2. You have got to be kidding me: Bigger ads which I cannot minimize? Two adds at the usless login page? I really do not think I need yet another calender let alone "special events".

3. If I and every other @excite.com user have to look at these adds then allow us to use a pop mail service without requiring a "Premium account"!

4. We cannot customize out view and the windows are very restrictive in the amount that they can be minimized and re-sized!

PLEASE CHANGE THE E-MAIL FEATURES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AND FIRE BLUETIE IF NECESSARY! WE NEED SIMPLE, FAST, POP3 CAPABLE E-MAIL RATHER THAN MARKETING CRAP! I work for an industry leader when it comes to customer service and support. Believe me when I say that "removed" knows the difference between providing services that entice someone to be a customer and implementing policies that create advocates for competitors services. If I do not see a change in excite's new e-mail I will no longer recommend your services to my friends.

Prevoiusly Long Time Excite User, Sincerely,

"Chilly Al"

[Pam]

Has anyone been ever to get signed into their email account after this big messup. I have not been able to sign in for a week? I just want to get my information and get away from Excite and BlueTie for good!!!!

[lilkunta]

I agree with all teh comments. Ive been with excite since 00. It is my primary email. I dont like teh bluetie format. It isnt ez, it isnt seamless, it isnt userfriendly.

I have to triple click to open emails, and the pages are so slow to load, to send, to delete, to move messages to another folder, etc.

Is this an alpha test or the way it will be from now on?

PLS REVERT BACK TO OLD FORMAT!

[Give up]

If business go to www.webmail.us or www.everyone.net or www.fastmail.fm

if individual user www.fastmail.fm

[yeswings]

Those people at excite have no respect for anyone that trusted them. They can be assured that most of us who were passed off and disposed of will be taking names. They dropped the ball and they don't seem to care. So they were a sham and are worthless in a community of people who have learned to depend on each other for help. Who was at the helm when this ship ran a ground. And who is at the helm at bluetie.
These people should be held accountable.

[yeswings]

Those people at excite have no respect for anyone that trusted them. They can be assured that most of us who were passed off and disposed of will be taking names. They dropped the ball and they don't seem to care. So they were a sham and are worthless in a community of people who have learned to depend on each other for help. Who was at the helm when this ship ran a ground. And who is at the helm at bluetie.
These people should be held accountable.

[Thomas Weitkamp]

I see the morons at BlueTie and IAC have blocked incoming emails. This is what I TRIED to send their way.

Folks, you know all those "users" that you are touting as joining the "IAC Partnership"? Well, prepare to lose 95+% of them. The online message boards are FULL of comments from users of Excite Mail whom DESPISE the new BlueTie interface, and I am one of them. I see that this unadulterated abortion is scheduled be migrated to Myway as well. That's just GREAT, you pinheads!

Expect to quickly start losing the persons whom currently use Excite and/or Myway mail anytime now. Since you have neglected to provide your customers with the ability to DECLINE this BlueTie crapfest and still use the old, reliable, SIMPLE interfaces that were FAR BETTER (the new interface is idiotically slow and loaded with BS that I neither want nor need), I personally will be going through my contact list and requesting that my contacts start using my Yahoo Mail address, immediately. I expect to stop using Excite mail entirely within a month, and as soon as this abomination spreads to Myway mail, that account will be closed-down as well.

I presume that the idiots whom dreamt-up this FUBAR have already been promoted higher within management. Stupid is as stupid does. I would have been happy to see the interface for Excite Mail transformed to emulate that of Myway Mail as it currently exists. But, nooooooooo, someone had to screw-up EVERYTHING with this asinine application that has to load-up 1.4MB of fresh data every single time it is accessed, effectively shutting-down anyone still using a dial-up connection.

[DJS]

I've been a long time user of Excite and have always been happy with the site until you changed the Email service. The new service looks nice but it is difficult to use, unreliable, and very slow. I hope they change the email service back to the previous system.

[Joy]

I agree that this new format STINKS. I am changing my e-mail address but I still have to check back for stuff that did not get transferred yet. Is there any way to get the old format back?

[Blue]

Excite has obviously lost their minds. This 'upgrade' is despicable. I have used Excite for over ten years and can't believe they would screw their members over like this. Maybe this is some kind of corporate-insurance-tax-evasion business suicide? It just doesn't make any sense.

Even though they are a little too big brother for me I must say my three year experience with Gmail has been quite good.

[Karen]

I have been with Excite since 1998. I hate this switchover. I have two accounts. One I can access just fine. The other one, I have been unable to access in over 4 weeks. I use this account for business. I don't even want to think about how many customers I have lost because of this. I have contacted Excite thru their help section with no replies. Their customer service STINKS! I have already set up another e-mail address, but that isn't helping matters much right now with the 300+ e-mails that are still on there and growing each day! Any suggestions????

[Michele]

What were they thinking??? The new email at Excite is awful. It's like having dial-up again when you have to wait for their cumbersome application to load. Then you have to wait for the page to refresh every time you click on something. Grrrr I hate it! I am leaving after 10 years with Excite and they are no longer my home page either. I wrote to them and got the same response as the others mentioned. What ever happened to KISS keep it simple stupid??? It's an email program, that's all I want is my email and fast. It's bloated with all this other junk I don't want and won't use. Goodbye Excite.

[JKL]

The new excite email is terrible..TERRIBLE!!!! What on earth are they thinking?? How about some customer research first, ASK US if we want the new email system or at least give A CHOICE between the old/new like yahoo did. A lot of people have lost all their folders and I personally cannot receive any email so far. Ansolutely proposterous and NEGLIGENT.

[elronds_pet01]

I've lost my accounts.... all the info about CNA training I wanted I'll have to sign with a different email from a different server. All my friends and family will have to be redirected. Thanks a lot Excite. You too Bluetie. D:<

[Steve]

It's insane that excite hasn't changed back to the old email. I haven't been able to see any emails since the change. Anything that's hit my email since the change hasn't been seen by me! It's insane. Can't even pop3 to another account unless you have gold membership YAH RIGHT!!

[Wally]

I worked for a couple of outfits that had the Inverse Midas Touch: "Bing! Turn to sh*t." But this beats all. They took a reasonable, if marginal, business and drove it into the crapper virtually overnight. That has to be some kind of a record......

[Andy Anderson]

I can not agree more with the rest of you this really sucks. it locks up cant even send e-mails let alone recieve them and then it makes my computer lock up like there is a bug in the system.. when if ever will they fix this??

[mark]

Has anyone else hadthe problem that since last week email cant be sent to their excite account. I have been a premium member for the last few years and now with the change over my business account just bounces email back excite dont respond to my requests for information.
The message back says Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual alias table 421 4.7.0 mx008.roc2.bluetie.com Error: too many errors>

[Pods]

I am a premier customer and also have lost access to my email account with excite. I have made about 20 phone calls to anyone associated with the excite website - I just recieved a response telling me that it will still be days before I am able to get back to my information and that is only if it is still there!!!! For a system that should have only been down for a few moments in between setup, this sure screwed up alot of people!!!

[Hemal]

Like micah1, Excite's been my primary account since 1997. As of last Thursday (August 7), I stopped receiving any new emails into my inbox. As of 48 hours ago, I can no longer even login to my email! Worse still, I'm a paid Gold Premium subscriber but the POP3 access is not working, so I can't even get anything forwarded to a new account! I've emailed customer service a number of times (of course excite doesn't have any semblance of live support) and have even called BlueTie, all of which amounted to absolutely NOTHING. I am fed up and at wits end right now and as far as I'm concerned, Excite is losing another customer. Now let me in to my email so I can migrate over to something else!

[Ellis]

Amazing. Unbelievable. Incredible!!! The new email is just BREATHTAKINGLY INEPT! Really, was it raw luck or a truly profound lack of sense -- or some awesome, cosmic combination -- that produced this K2 of bloatware? It takes forever to load (if you're lucky). You have to click, delete, click, delete, click, delete. And, HURRAY!, I can see GREAT BIG BANNERS, and have a tiny little--slow-loading--message window. Gilligan could have designed better email. Truly. F'in little buddy Gilligan.

[Brenda]

I am so glad to hear I am not alone in disgust with Excite and now reading posts I learned about Blue Tie. I wrote to Excite and asked if they would offer a classic version as Yahoo did-Response --No plans to do so. I guess they don't care that few will be there to read their ads. But keep complaining--Advertisers will not pay top dollar for sites with few if any customers-Hit them in the wallet! Why not-They hit us with an unwelcome problem. BB

[TSW]

I'm a mail admin with a company that has a ton of excite customers. I can tell you we are having massive problems delivering to Excite. Their mail receiving servers routinely disconnect before we're even able to send mail to them. They are the only ISP that we are currently having this problem with.

[Starry]

I just checked MY myway account, and it is a big mess. I can't navigate well, and its ugly. I can't recieve mail, so far, but I can email ? other people, seemingly.What a big let down. Pop up pages are the only way to navigate, and I can' even see my email messages. This new system doesn't come with instructions. I have to muddle through, and hope the features will work. It looks like it was designed by a 5 year old ! I hate it, and will opt out soon.Blue tie ? What's next ? Pink Sox ? I feel like I have been stuck into a broom closet in the basement of a large cold corporation.

[Starry]

Update. I can get to MYWAY account. It's slow going. It takes forever to forward my stuff out of there. Kind of like having to climb a steep staircase, and only allowed to take one book at a time. They need a way we can forward ALL of our stuff outta there at once, and slam the door.

[Timothy]

Attached images used to load within your opened messages automatically. EASY! Now, that's over as well. Each pic or image is listed individually as an attachment that you must click on and choose to download to a temp. folder in order to view it. Of course this takes forever, if it works,and often it does not. I've had most all the other problems everyone else has posted here, and I can't believe Excite could be so stupid to begin with, and so oblivious to the backlash there is now. Excite was my favorite e mail interface for 10 plus years, fast, simple, easy to use. I used to be able to breeze through my messages, delete the ones I'd finished with in a couple clicks, empty the trash and be logged out, now it take the same amount of time to just log in. I was really hoping that maybe a few weeks after the switch to Bluetie they could iron all this out, but it just doesn't get better. So long Excite! It was a good ride, while it lasted.

[SS]

Hey, everyone, check this out about this disgrace guy, David Koretz, CEO of BlueTie.

http://notableandnewsworthy.blogspot.com/2007/07/david-koretz-ceo-of-bluetie.html

He and his Porsche.....what an a-hole. Hate new excite!!!

Here is the contact info:
David Koretz
BlueTie, Inc.
Founder & CEO
BlueTie, Inc.
1050 Pittsford-Victor Road
Pittsford, NY 14534
Email: david@BlueTie.com
www.BlueTie.com
www.DavidKoretz.com

[Robert Buda]

how does fuck off sound....and how bout putting it back where it was sound.....someone needs their nuts cut off for gving the ok for this crap....so he can't bring anymore dumb fuck's in this cRaZy world