Yahoo! Mail Review: Better in Detail
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Written By Reprise Media | October 17, 2006 | Share This
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As a longtime fan of Yahoo! (did you think we still existed?), I wanted to point out the great job they’ve done on the update to Yahoo! Mail. Introduced in September, Y! Mail is easier to navigate, has a cleaner layout, and a smoother UI. The development team has done a great job of incorporating new functions with modified versions of existing tools, vastly improving usability. Save for the weird faceless guy with glasses who shows up EVERYWHERE, it’s Yahoo!’s attention to detail that sets the new Mail apart from its competitors.
To begin with, I appreciate how customizable they’ve made the Calendar. As they say on the Y! Mail Blog, the ticker on the bottom “makes it super easy to add and edit events, see when you’re busy and when you’re free, and generally stay on top of your schedule.” Its easy to share events with other users and the calendar is accessible from Mail (like Microsoft Outlook) - a big plus for someone who is accustomed to using Outlook at work.
Categorizing emails is very easy - editable with just a click-drag-drop. The ‘Find Message’ tool is terrific, and the spam protection is the best I’ve seen. There are lots of suggestion tools to help users with categorization, and icons for easy category identification. Though the ‘Event Bar’ at the bottom of the page appears to have a glitch, everything else about the functionality of Mail is seamless. They’ve even included roughly 30 shortcut keys to speed up emailing. For example, a user can type ‘r’ to reply or ‘f’ to forward, for highlighted emails. Because of these shortcut keys, it might take new users a bit of time to get used to the system, but there is plenty of help available to guide users through (see weird faceless man).
Perhaps the best change, however, is that Y! Mail allows you to have multiple emails/replies/forwards open at once. They open in separate panes, rather than separate tabs, which translates better to the way I multitask during work. Even the new RSS feeds on the sidebar (finally!) toggle within the same pane as emails. You can browse email titles or RSS headlines without switching applications. This entire update, in fact, seems to be about cutting down waiting time and consolidating information. I’m guessing that the new version will be especially attractive to a younger demographic, since they’re more accustomed to consuming multiple types of media at once.
Because Y! Mail caters to an audience that likes to multitask, it could be the unexpected comeback for Yahoo!. Sure, social networking and video sites are hot topics at the moment, but email remains the crux of all online communication. For that reason, Yahoo!’s attention to perfecting their email server is extremely smart, and though overlooked, may ultimately be what regains Yahoo!’s market share.
Topics: Technology, Yahoo! |
Agree that Y! Mail could be their redemption. And smartly, though most everything happens in the same browser window, they’ve managed to maximize the ad inventory in the new UI.
For example, when you flip between tabs or even go from one message in your inbox to the next, the skyscraper at right refreshes. Also, they don’t offer an option when you’re composing a message, to automatically close your message tab once it’s been sent (I looked hard for it) - an ad unit appears there as well.
Kudos to Y! for a good job at user interface as well as monetization