Free Deaf Cafe Email Service Ended June 1, 2007 In 1999, when DeafCafe.com launched as a free email service, it was ahead of its time. It was the first free web-based email service in the Deaf community. Unfortunately, while the service was free to those using it, it was not free to operate. Almost all free web-based email systems depend on advertising. This is how they are able to offer free webmail service, including companies like Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail. Unfortunately, this advertising model never quite worked for DeafCafe.com. Last summer, we announced our decision to cease service. Rather than shut down the service completely, a number of email users requested that we continue the service as a paid service so that they could continue to use their email accounts. We listened and decided that would be a good way to help offset the costs involved with maintaining the service. As a paid email service, we'd also be able to offer a lot more. Instead of the 25 MB of disk space free email users had previously, we're now able to offer 100 MB. We're also now hosted on much faster, state-of-the-art servers, which are run by DeafVision, Inc. (a very cool, Deaf-owned Internet company based in San Francisco). DeafVision was also one of our original sponsorers and generously helped sponsor DeafCafe.com for a number of years. If you would like to have your own @deafcafe.com account, the cost is $25 annually. This is a small subscription fee that helps offset the costs of running DeafCafe.com. It also means ad-free webmail. No more pesky banners! Our free email service officially ended on June 1, 2007. If you were a former DeafCafe.com email user, we hope you enjoyed the many years of free service we were able to provide and wish you well. Best wishes, Mark DeafCafe.com