The New New Yahoo! Mail - the fight to remain the most popular email service.
Starting today, Yahoo! is finally bringing its public beta test to an end and taking the wraps off the final version of the new version of it’s email service for its more than 254 million Yahoo! Mail users. This overhaul is driven by the need to transform e-mail into more of a social activity that blends the convenience of instant communication with the implicit network of relationships found in one’s online address book.
“Our goal is to make (Yahoo) Mail a more social experience,” John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail, said in a phone interview. “We really look at ourselves as sitting on top of the largest dormant social network out there.” [Via]
This comes at a time when studies show online time spent on pure communication such as email losing out to time spent on content based activities, showcasing a need for more direct and instantenous forms of communication.
Features we can look forward to:
1. The capability to initiate an instant messaging session with buddies on your Microsoft Windows Live Messenger list as well as the Yahoo Messenger list members.
2. For users in the U.S., India, Canada, and the Philippines, the capability to send text messages to mobile phones from within the e-mail message window itself. This would no doubt extend to other countries once Yahoo! ties up with more mobile service providers. While Yahoo! does not charge for sending or receiving text messages, but mobile telephone users may be charged fees by carriers that provide their services. Earlier this facility was available via the Instant Messenger.
3. In the U.S., a feature called Shortcuts that has been available in the “classic” version of the service. This feature lets the system automatically recognize things such as dates and addresses, giving people the option of adding the information to their Yahoo Calendar or
Contacts list, launching Web searches and displaying a map inside the Yahoo Mail interface.
4. An improvement in performance and speed, as well as an expansion of the search refinement features.
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