Hotmail inventor returns with a fix

SINCE EVERYONE, plus dog, has a bog these days, the inventor of Hotmail says his creation needs one too.

Sabeer Bhatia, the Bangalore student who invented Hotmail and then made a bomb flogging it to Microsoft, is returning to fix what he describes as a "neglected stepchild".

Bhatia says that on Monday he will unveil his first attempt to "enhance the Hotmail experience" since he left the outfit ten years ago.

This basically involves the global launch of blogeverywhere.com. Hotmail users of the website will be able to download a toolbar that allows them to write and publish their own blogs.

It will also mean that Hotmail users will get faster access to their messages as Blogeverywhere's toolbar will download unread e-mail messages and store them in a local cache.

Bhatia has shelled out $5m from his personal fortune to develop the project, according to the FT here. µ