Back in early October, we flew down to San Francisco to learn a bit more about some improvements both to the functionality of and the thinking behind Hotmail.  In a blog post timed to coincide with the event, Dick Craddock from Hotmail told us to expect to see the new features “in the coming weeks”.  For us, it took a while, but we’ve had the new functionality on all of our accounts for maybe a month, and we were a bit surprised to get email from a reader yesterday asking “when is the “New Hotmail” coming?”.

Then today, Pradeep Viswav at Microsoft News posted that the update is rolling out for more users, so obviously everyone hasn’t quite received the update yet, although we’re getting tweets saying that readers are in fact receiving it as we speak.

Probably the easiest visual cue (if you flag messages, that is) is that “the new” Hotmail puts your flagged messages at the top of your inbox:

.. part of an effort that Microsoft calls “flags done right”.  If your flags are at the top of your inbox, you’re in the new Hotmail.  Other new features include Categories, Scheduled Sweep, and Instant Actions.  If your inbox looks like this (including the “Flags keep messages on top” email that Hotmail just sent out to show off the new “flags done right” feature)….

…you’re on the new Hotmail.  So, are you?  Or more importantly, are you still on the “old” Hotmail? Let us know in the comments.