Transitioning goowy.com Mail to AOL

It's been a while since we announced that we would be transitioning the goowy.com mail services over to AOL, but after lots of work we've finalized a plan that we want to share with you.

At a high level, the goals of the transition will be as follows:

Allow you to maintain your @goowy.com email addresses.  We understand that many of you value your address, that you've given it to your friends and family and you may have even put it onto your business cards.  As such, this was our largest objective - to ensure that your contacts would able to continue to use your existing email address to contact you.
Allow you to maintain your existing address book.  We will be transferring your address book to AOL, which will allow you to access the friends and family that you've already input into our system.  Additionally, after your initial login to the AOL system, your address book will be used to supplement the AOL SPAM prevention, ensuring that anyone that is in your address book will be able to email you without their messages getting flagged as SPAM.
• Allow you to continue to access the existing mail that you've received within goowy.

Specifics of the plan are as follows:

• We will perform the migration sometime during the week of August 25th.  We'll give you an update on exact timing a little closer to the date.
• Once the migration begins, we will make all new messages go into the AOL mail servers and we will close all logins at goowy.com.
We will provide you with a link on goowy.com pointing you to the appropriate place to login for your goowy mail at AOL.  The first time you attempt to log into the AOL system, you will be asked to accept the AOL terms of service, and you will likely need to fill in a few more pieces of information - such as your age.
Once you login, your address book will get added into your account - this will be the address book as it existed within goowy on August 22nd - so make sure that you don't make any further edits to your address book past August 21st (or you'll have to make the same changes again within the AOL system).
You will be able to immediately send out messages from this new account and they will be sent from your @goowy.com addresses.  In addition, any new messages that have come in since the transition and your login will be in your inbox.
After your first login, we will begin pulling your existing messages from goowy into your AOL mailboxes.  All of your goowy inbox messages will be placed into a folder called "goowy Inbox" within the AOL system.  All of the messages in your other folders will be placed into a folder called "goowy Other Folders" within the AOL system.  Between these two folders, you should have all of your email, but please note that it may take a few days for us to populate all of your email, after your initial login to the AOL system.

A couple of notes on services that will not be transitioned:

• Integrated IM will not be available.  However, if you are an AIM user, you should visit http://aim.aol.com 0r http://www.aim.com/aimexpress.adp if you would like to continue to use a web based version.  If you need an integrated web based messenger such as the one provided within goowy, we would recommend that you try Meebo at http://www.meebo.com.
• File storage will not be available, but you can access your existing files directly from Box.net at http://box.net.  Please make sure that you can login and access your files, and contact the folks at box.net immediately if you have issues with access to your files.
• The calendar will not be transitioned for you.  If you have existing items that are important to you, make sure that you export your calendar.
• Your widgets/settings will not be transitioned for you.  However, you can setup a very similar experience manually at http://www.yourminis.com.

Finally, here are a few things you should do to help make the transition as simple as possible:

• Log into your goowy account if you want it to be moved.  We will not be moving accounts that have not logged in at least once from July 7th to August 25th.
• Make sure your alternate email address is accurate.  Once we transition accounts to AOL, the alternate email address will be the only way for us to work with you to reset your password in the case that you forget it.
• We will only have support for 16 character passwords or less.  It seems that many of you have longer passwords.  If that's the case, please login, change your password within goowy to something less than 17 characters, and the login again to ensure that the password worked and that you know it well.

If you have any other specific concerns, please email them to support@goowymedia.com and we will do our best to address them.

We thank you for your support throughout the years and with this process as well...

- your goowy team

Comments

[erichards]

I think you are going to anger a lot of people by taking out box.net and messenger - Goowy = everything in 1 place...not anymore!

[Virginia]

I agree with the comment before. My most used part of goowy is the file storage... I use it for homework and stuff... is their no way you can keep it?

I really liked goowy having everything... please don't stop now...

[Goowy]

Sorry guys... this has been in the works for a while and is something that we're going to have to move forward with... Again, you'll still be able to access your files - just directly through box.net. Thanks for all of your support...

[Jennifer]

I can't log in currently and it says my user name doesn't exist? Is this to be expected? Can I not log into goowy now until the 25th?
Thanks!

[Goowy]

Jennifer - The email address that you have posted does not exist in our system. If you have not logged in for a minimum of 180 days (and assuming the email address is spelled correctly in your note), your account was likely deleted (http://www.goowy.com/faq.html#disabled). Unfortunately, once an account is deleted, there is no way to recover the account...

[Liam]

Please someone steal the source code and host an alternative!!!

AoL have taken away the best email client on the internet.

It is good to hear that our addresses and mail will be accessible, I was not looking forward to moving 1000's of messages across.

This whole move is inexplicable, I've set up a ymail address now and will be using that as I don't need to use AoL for anything. Winamp was better without them and others.

Live and Learn x

[Jennifer]

Well, the thing is, I have been using my account every day up until I was unable to log in. Is it possible someone infiltrated my account and closed it?

[Goowy]

Jennifer - I suppose it's possible if you gave someone your password and/or had a password that was easy to guess. As I mentioned though, once an account is deleted (as this one clearly is) there is nothing that we can do to recreate it.. Sorry for the bad news...

[Jennifer]

That is okay that it cannot be recreated, I'm just a little bit nervous about who would have gone in and deleted my account.
Is there any chance the data was somehow lost during the move?

[Goowy]

We haven't actually done anything in terms of the move yet, so no, it wouldn't be due to that...

[Jennifer]

Are there any other possibilities other than someone breaking into my account??

[Goowy]

The only other two possibilities are that you accidentally hit the delete button yourself or that you hadn't logged into the account for 120 days...

[Firewalker]

Finally!! As long as this is settled now. The biggest issue I had was when it sounded like I was going to lose all the emails I had stored in Goowy (several thousand emails). Having to manually move them in order to save them would have had me pulling my hair out!!

I had no interest in using IM within Goowy (and thought it was a waste since there were better alternatives) and have always had a storage area for files that I never used the Box.net storage. I never used the Calendar in Goowy, I had all that on my smartphone, so that wasn't an issue either.

So congratulations on getting the bugs worked out with being able to transfer my emails and address book without having to do it manually. That was the biggest hurdle in my opinion.

[JD]

Looks like I'm done w/ Goowy. Thanks for selling out to AOL, was a great site while it lasted.

[Carlos]

Real shame, I totally understand the reasons why you sold out, but you won't be taking me with you, AOL is an internet cancer.

Anyone else looking for an alternative to goowy I would suggest http://www.gmx.com. Allows you to consolidate all your mailboxes from other providers and is also currently still in beta which means you've got a half decent chance of getting a good address...

[Cristian]

Wow...lame! I know it's too late for wishful thinking and pointless to beg for any reconsideration so I'll do neither. But just to be clear, this means that all of our goowy accounts'll just be AOL accounts with goowy at the end now, right? So if I wanna use that nifty little GMX email consolidation site mentioned above, I'd have to list the account as AOL but use *****@goowy.com as the name? Just curious! There's no way i'm goin back to AOL exclusively.

[Cristian]

***However, this was AWESOME while it lasted!!! Thanks, guys!!***

[Goowy]

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with GMX, so I can't really say how things would function there, but you're most likely accurate in your assumptions...

[Xanorak]

Wait, does this mean that if we do not want our account to be moved we do not log in? So if I do not log in and move I can keep everything?

Well, if I am wrong, I am done with Goowy then.

[Goowy]

Xanorak - If you don't log in prior to the end of August, your account will not be migrated. However, no one will be able to log into the current goowy system at the time of migration, so if your account has not been migrated, you will not have access to your mail at all...

[erichards]

Check out:

http://www.gowebtop.com

This is as nice looking as goowy but the downfall it has limited functionality.

Anyone know of a similar service to Goowy where u can check rss feeds and customize things?

Goowy...you've lost me 2 i'm afraid!

[erichards]

Forgot to add to above post,

Check out gowebtop.com's blog, they claim they have got more features coming! It's a pretty new app so good email address availability might be high. They used to be laszlo mail, if anyone has heard of them. They have open source code so third party developers can get in on the act as well!

http://gowebtop.com/blog/2008/

I don't work for them, honestly...i have been with them for 3 years (as well as goowy) and they have not troubled me as of yet!

[igwesi victor]

goowy it is a good thing to work with a bigger team,remain connected with ur plans for a wonderful relationship with aol.

[Don K.]

I was in from the early stages and I'll be here 'till the migration.

I'll miss Goowy and all the funny faces I get when I used to give out my email @GOOWY.com, Goowy-what's goowy, I laughed all the time.

Do what you gotta do, make it even better, and hope to see your future projects...

Appreciated All Your Efforts And The GOOWY Experience, Thank You Very Much.

Aloha From Hawai'i,
Don K.

[Mark]

Shouldn't you send this as a broadcast e-mail to all goowy users? I would bet quite a few users aren't even aware of the changes, much less have read the blog to find out some of the details of the migration. Seems like you could save yourself a lot of future headaches by making a better effort to inform your users...