RocketMail was one of the 'first major free webmail services' and was a product of Four11. For a brief time RocketMail battled with Hotmail for the number one spot amongst free webmail services. RocketMail and Four11 were acquired by Yahoo! in 1997. Yahoo! assimilated the RocketMail engine. Yahoo! Mail is essentially the old RocketMail webmail system.

RocketMail users carry a mark of distinction as some of the first Internet webmail users as Yahoo! to this day reserve the RocketMail domain for their use. Also, the RocketMail system was more intuitive and more powerful than its Hotmail counterpart, attracting the programming and computer user elite.

At the time of the transition, RocketMail users could either choose a Yahoo! ID (they were not guaranteed the availability of their RocketMail ID on Yahoo!) or could use "username.rm" (which they were guaranteed) as their Yahoo! ID. Thus, they were able keep their rocketmail.com address and receive the same services as all Yahoo! users.

On June 19, 2008, Yahoo started the RocketMail brand again by allowing new users to sign up for accounts under the rocketmail.com domain, which had not been possible since its acquisition of Four11 Corp. back in 1997.

External links

• RocketMail
• Yahoo! Mail
• Yahoo addresses narrowing e-mail options with addition of 'ymail,' 'rocketmail' domains

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