You can tell a lot about a person from their e-mail address

Some people's e-mail address tells you a lot about them. For example, esteemed e2god Uberfetus' address is kraftwerk@mac.com. This can tell you several things (and I better be good, he might read this). The most obvious is that he uses a Mac. Mac.com is owned by Apple, and available only to people who use their iTools service, which is only available to users of MacOS 9. So we know Uberfetus uses either a fairly new Mac, or he upgraded the OS. Second, he likes Kraftwerk, a pseudo-industrial german band. Other examples would be people whose address ends in @hotmail.com. This says the person is either:

1. Cheap.
2. Wants to access their address anywhere.
3. Just got on the internet and can't figure out a POP or IMAP client.

Yet another example, a more extreme one, is my old 9th grade government teacher's e-mail address. The suffix is: @chhs.k12.nc.us. Starting from the right, he is in the US. He is in North Carolina. He teaches (K-12). He is at Chapel Hill High School. We know now, just from his e-mail address, that he teaches at CHHS in North Carolina.

It's amazing, isn't it!
Mine's smileyj68@mac.com, now tell me who I am.

Of course some e-mail addresses are also a sort of status symbol. A bit like having a five digit ICQ UIN is, or having an e-mail address like pete@hotmail.com

This one would indicate that, although you might be cheap and want to get your e-mail anywhere (I'm sure I can do that with telnet though...) but you were there early when hotmail was New & Exciting!(tm) There's plenty to be said for having been there before it became popular, and its fun to laugh at the people who all have sexy_kitten_1083@hotmail.com style addresses.

Your domain means a lot also... certain subscription sites give you mail addresses (real ones, not web ones) which can tell you lots about people (not just that they are willing to fork out an extra 10 bucks a month even though they most likely have an ISP addy also).

Lets be honest, which would you prefer, the well.com address or the hotmail.com address??

The Easy Guide To E-mail Address L33tness (using my very own email addresses as examples)

1. DOKool@aol.com - Yes, this states that I am an AOL user, but the relative shortness, originality, and lack of random numbers at the end shows that I must have been an early adopter. Also, the fact that I'm still on AOL despite a plethora of alternatives shows that I am either reluctant to change, or that I have too much at stake to attempt a change.

2. dokool@dokool.com - This tells you a little bit more. First, the fact that I own my own domain shows that I take the internet somewhat more seriously than others. Second, I can afford a domain, and that I've managed to configure this email addy proves my knowledge of software.

3. dokool@simons-rock.edu - The last example. Ignoring the domain (simons-rock), first look at the .edu extension. This says that I have managed to obtain an address at a college or university. The fact that I have my alias (dokool) @simons-rock.edu shows that I knew somebody in CMS well enough to get my alias changed to whatever I wanted. (m turner says: "Some universities have that the case for all students and faculty, others just faculty... depends on the size." In otherwords, your l33tness quotient will vary) Email addresses can be a status symbol, of sorts. Since all of my emails resolve to one central address, I choose what I want to convey by giving somebody my email address. The .edu says that I'm a bright college student. The dokool.com says that I have my own website, thus I must know my shit. The aol.com... well, I never give out the aol.com.

Stuff I Didn't Touch Upon:
Foreign Extensions - Having an extension that resides in a foreign country (especially a relatively cool one, like .il for Israel) gets you karma, though pretty much any foreign email is nice to have.

Government Extensions - Yes, a .gov. It just screams impressive. Nothing much needs to be said here, except that I hope you've procured it through the normal channels.

Military Extensions - .mil is probably one of the more harder extensions to come by, but all the more power to you if you have one, legally.