Yahoo! Unveils Mail Updates as Service Moves Out of Beta
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Written By Drupad Sil | August 27, 2007 | Share This
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Yahoo! has moved the new interface for its mail service out of beta and made it the default interface for all new Yahoo mail accounts. The new interface, in public beta since September 2006, has several new features that will be rolled out this week, including intelligent shortcuts and SMS/text messaging for the U.S., India, Philippines, and Canada.
The new interface is said to be a product of Yahoo!’s 2004 acquisition of Ajax frontrunner Oddpost, with many of the features (and GMail’s) based on ideas first put forth by the small webmail service. Out of the new features, being able to send text messages from a free e-mail account is generating the most buzz. Yahoo! Mail is the first free e-mail service to offer this feature. When coupled with the fact that users will not need to navigate away from their mail webpage to access these text messages and instant messages, it becomes clear that Yahoo! is looking to expand its web service into a real social communication tool.
Another neat interface feature is the service’s smart detection of addresses, appointments, and dates in the body of e-mails. When recognized by the mail server and moused over by the user, maps and directions can be offered within the mail interface, or an option to add the appointment to one’s Yahoo! Calendar is made, greatly increasing convenience. Users can drag and drop messages into folders, open multiple message windows, preview message content, and perform actions via keyboard shortcuts. If all this is too different, users will still have the option of utilizing Yahoo! Mail’s classic version.
The interface change is expected to appeal to an audience that is used to the functionality and features of Google’s GMail, for example. Domestically, Yahoo! is dominant with 83 million users as of July, while worldwide it is neck and neck with MSN’s Hotmail. So how does the new interface stack up to GMail? Michael Arrington at TechCrunch performs the comparison:
“In our comparisons GMail always comes out on top, although the main reason is tagging of messages and the fact that GMail gives free forwarding and POP access to the account. Yahoo still charges $20/year for forwarding or POP access. For users who still like their desktop mail clients, POP access is an important feature. Yahoo says they are considering making it a free option, but they have a lot of paying mail customers. If they make too many features free, they jeopardize that revenue stream. Offering unlimited free storage really pushed the limits, so I don’t expect them to move more features from paid to free any time soon.”
With Yahoo! Mail having been a cornerstone of Yahoo!’s services since its debut, the addition of a new interface and new features is no doubt welcome for users and a relief for the company. We’ll have to see how it stacks up to MSN and GMail, not to mention smaller clients like Orgoo, but this is a big step in the right direction for the web giant.
Topics: Domains, Technology, Yahoo! |
I still like the old version of yahoo mail, mostly because the new (Oddpost/Ajax) interface, while really lovely to look at, is so slow. Sigh.
[…] SearchViews quotes that Yahoo! Mail will now sport more features, such as the detection of addresses and contacts in e-mails and options for users to perform additional actions on this data. Also, the mails can be dragged and dropped for simpler organization. […]