It would be really cool of Yahoo Mail could interface with other IM services besides Yahoo! Messenger. I would switch over from Gmail if they offered a service that would connect my AIM with Yahoo Mail.

Yea it would be… They’re already working with Microsoft to let Y! messengar and MSN/Live Messenger users talk to each other. Theoretically, it will follow suit here as well.

What I’m missing, however, is how this is different than what Google did with Gmail and Gtalk, as posted above by Michael… Isn’t Google’s “version” also in one interface?

I don’t know if I agree with your suggestion above that “Users will quickly get used to flipping quickly between email and IM depending on “presence” - whether or not the person they are communicating with is online.”

I’m often stunned at how fixed some people are — they love email/hate IM — or love voicemail/don’t like email — or other variations. I’ve found many of us are old dogs who are not too keen on learning new tricks when it comes to media.

And this isn’t always a function of age, but rather what business environment you’ve grown up in. Consultants are so voice-mail-centric. VC’s are very Blackberry-ish. Geeks are very IMful.

^ but couldn’t it be a cool application if you’re IMing from your sidekick and somebody sends you directions to a club or party you’re trying to get to? i’m not sure if any of this applies to mobile devices but I could see it being useful and tons of people IM and email via treos, sidekicks, etc.

Looks like google is doing the samething in ORKUT
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
and this sounds to me more practical because ppl who uses orkut are more intrested in IM than who just use email.

Suede, Yahoo! Messenger now interoperates with MSN Messenger.

Al, yes…Google also did this in Gmail. Our implementation is a little different mostly in terms of the look and feel, not to mention the difference in size of the Yahoo! Messenger network.

Halley, yes…some people won’t be comfortable with the switching between IM and mail. However, for those who are, it may open up an entirely new world of communication for them. For those who aren’t, they don’t have to use that feature.

The big deal is that we’re bringing together two of the largest communications tools in the world (Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger) and doing it in a way that brings the best of both worlds.

The New Yahoo Mail Beta is a freakin’ piece of crap. I was having so many problems in terms of responsiveness that I just decided to switch back to the old format.

Use of AJAX is good, but Yahoo Mail beta just takes it to the extreme — there by defeating the entire purpose of user-friendliness. Heck, after logging in / hitting the reply button, it takes forever for the page to load. not only that, that particular browser window will go unresponsive during that period because its busy making AJAX calls to the server.

> We continue to prefer Yahoo Mail over Gmail because Yahoo Mail allows POP access to third party email services, whereas Gmail only allows access to Google’s own email service.

Whereas Google offers free POP access to your Gmail and Yahoo makes you pay if you want to take your email anywhere else.

Sorry, I just can’t follow the logic of liking Yahoo’s mail better for giving you the option of setting up multiple mail accounts for Yahoo to hold hostage.

It’s interesting that the powers that be are recognizing that email and IM are the same thing. I give them one year before recognizing that VoIP is the same thing.

I would like to point out that pop functionality in Yahoo mail is available only if you pay for the service unlike Google mail which has free pop functionality. I dont see how this is considered a plus on Yahoo’s side especially since they allocate so much more of their screen real estate for advertising than Google Mail.

Oops looks like Eric has already pointed this out My bad.

^ hey what do you mean kevin? i’ve done a lot of work in (voip) - how do you mean voip is the same thing? i would love to get a good sense of that - it sounds interesting

thanks!

Yahoo should have made the move ages ago. At the moment I use gmail and I love it/trust google with my data. The interface isn’t as bloated as the yahoo-mail-interface (judging from the screen shot above).

POP-access to other e-mail accounts would be great in gmail and is a really nice feature of yahoo-mail, but honestly forwards do the same job.
When it comes to accessing the gmail-account via POP: I don’t use that function. Actually I’m really happy with a simple and fast webmail interface that collects all my mails from all those email accounts. I can access it from any of my machines and under any OS and don’t have to sync (also on my PDA).

Would I have the need of signing up for a webmail account I might have a look at yahoo thought I personally find google more likable.
Now I have used gmail for some time and would not think a minute about switching.

I wonder how the numbers would compare if they only used ACTIVE and/or REAL email accounts. Most people I know have both a yahoo and gmail account, myself included. However, they all use yahoo as their “spam” email, and gmail as their real one. Or they abandoned their yahoo mail long ago.

To be honest, I dont really care about how the numbers compare. Yahoo mail has been around for god knows how long and that’s why they have so many users. Lots of people are afraid of change so they just stick with it, or they dont want to change their email address. That’s fine….

But I’m happy as a pig in shit with Gmail. Yahoo is doing some interesting things with their beta client, but it’s really TOO MUCH for me. I can see how others would like it though.

The statement about POP access is definitely not correct. GMail provides free POP access for all accounts. GMail also provides all users with the ability to receive and send email messages from any of their email accounts. I use Gmail to manage my email, but everything goes through my personal email address. This way I’m not tied to Gmail and I could easily chose to use any service in the future.

Opps. I guess you are right that it provides direct access to other pop accounts, but Gmail works for me at the moment. Anyway, I’ll be interested to see the new product.

I agree with Dr. Phil - yahoo! mail is a piece of junk. I worked with the beta as soon as it came out, and suffered through each “improvement” phase. Finally, I could not take it anymore and switched to gmail. Let me tell you its 100 times more responsive and easier to use.

Yahoo is going the totally wrong direction with their email client. The web is no longer about building typical applications into web pages. They have it backwards - Ajax or not.

I still have my Yahoo account and occasionally I have to pop in there to get something old or check for stray messages, and it always takes literally 10 TIMES the amount of time to do anything. Simply waiting for the interface to EVEN LOAD is a sample case of frustration.

As gmail improves, Yahoo will bleed members (POP access or no) until the light goes on over there.

Weird, Yahoo Mail is an absolutely stunning, fast, wonderful application in my opinion, based on fairly extensive use. For people having problems, I’d love to hear about specific issues.

It looks like the POP issue has worked out in the comments - I’m talking about accessing OTHER email accounts, like work email, in the Yahoo Mail app. Given how many email accounts I have, that’s a very important feature for me.

summarizing the discussions, the Michael Arrington’s report is unprofessional and biased. the POP access subject (’We continue to prefer Yahoo Mail over Gmail because Yahoo Mail allows POP access to third party email services, whereas Gmail only allows access to Google’s own email service’) is just disqualifying for the credibility of this high rated blog.

Well acrv, as a long time reader I always found a certain slant pro-yahoo anti-google in Mr. Arrington’s posts regarding both companies. This post is more proof of that.

Mike,
You gotta be either kidding me or you have a 6M pipe net access. With my regular Road Runner connection, I always get bogged down by the ‘Ajaxy’ features of Yahoo Mail beta.

Symptoms begin right from logging in. I havent timed how long the process takes, but definitely considerably higher than the vanilla yahoo mail took.

If I hit reply button to an email, again browser gets stuck making the fancy AJAXy calls.
Searching mail is another pain point. switcing views from one folder view to another is also problematic at times.

Not to sound repetitive, but I havent timed each of these problems. Nor I have used Live HTTP headers to track each http request etc.. I used FF 1507 on Win.

If you still want, I can provide the specifics.

Glad to know that there are others, who detest the beta as much as i do.

My specific issues with Yahoo mail:

Loads incredibly slowly. Works even more slowly. Even hotmail beats Yahoo. Just sad. Perhaps it’s because they spend their resources trying to look all fancy. Or maybe it’s because it has to load all that dynamic banner advertising.

Oh, and any Gmail user will tell you that Chat doesn’t have to take up your whole damn screen.

Seriously, I’ll take Gmail any day. I’m open to the idea that someone can make a better product than Gmail/Google stuff. For example, I love Google calendar, but that Scrybe program looks much better. But there’s no way Yahoo mail is better than Gmail. Unless you just can’t understand a program that doesn’t look like Outlook and run just as slow.

I love the Yahoo Mail beta, but will stick with Meebo for my IM needz.

mrshl: you seem be forgetting that different people need and expect different things from online service.

“But there’s no way Yahoo mail is better than Gmail.”

Sure, I know people who agree with you. But I also know people who don’t like the way Gmail works at all.

Different strokes for different folks, ya know?

Dr. Phil, we’re aware of performance complaints that users have had about Yahoo! Mail Beta. We’re already working hard on making it faster in our upcoming releases. As for needing a 6M pipe, that’s excessive. I’ve seen it launch fine on my machine with a normal broadband connection. Obviously it’s not fantastic on dialup, but very few things are.

I’ve actually launched it using my cell’s modem before and it wasn’t terrible. I won’t rush right out to try it again, but it was usable.

I am not sure why it is so much bashing of Yahoo mail beta version in this thread. Being an average user, though (quite web-savvy) but not too “geeky” (with a whole respect to highly technical folks), I find it pretty useful. I think that average users like me would decide if this innovation is going to be adopted and liked by the majority. Plus, heavy usage is what counts in the long run. Gmail and other apps are good too, but if you stick to one, it is much easier to appreciate the changes they incorporate for a user.

Perhaps, yes, I have to count “1-2-3” while the interface shows up upon login and I hope it will change some day to a faster rate. However, I totally enjoy the ability to search through email and drag messages to folders (imitating the well-trained habit from Outlook) and doing all other things much faster due to this beta version. I would imagine the IM merge to it will add a functionality to explore, though I thought they already had it.

At the same time, I think Yahoo! can benefit well from both the feedback from their existing and long-history customers as well as the highly-technical folks, mostly commenting on this blog. Though, it is tough to juggle what existent customers want with what the new users crave (more disruption).

hey ryan,

no offense intended….I guess my expectations were set higher, considering that I had to wait a long time to get into the beta and all the hype about YMB.

Glad to know that you guys are aware and working towards these issues.

Dr. Phil, none taken. We’d been really heavily focused on feature development for a while, making everything work right and such. It’s a fairly complex web application. Far as I know, we’re still the only webmail that completely does away with paging and that’s no simple feat. Now we’re coming back around, though, and we should start getting faster shortly. We have several of the best and brightest DHTML minds hard at work on that.

Jeremy, I love your blog, and for sure, I can see why some people might prefer Yahoo mail. Especially from a network effects perspective (i.e., you’ve got a lot of pals using it). But beyond the stickiness factor, which is significant, I don’t see anything to recommend the actual product in a head to head comparison with Gmail. And they charge you for features Gmail gives you for free.

Yes, it’s cute that a breakdancer entertains me while the damn thing is loading. And the buttons and tabs sure are shiny. But Gmail doesn’t need halftime entertainment while you’re waiting for it to perform some task.

Like I said, point me to a better product when there is one. And, yes, network effects and a familiar interface offer an incentive for some folks to stay with an inferior product. But feature for feature and pound for pound, Gmail is it right now.

haha, as if i’m still using Yahoo’s services. I just use Yahoo for yahoogroups but my receiving email is still on Gmail. Is there a version of Google Hosted too? My Yahoo mail is filled with lots of spams, it was like about 50% of my mailbox. Why 50%? Because Yahoo can’t compress related threads which indirectly increases the mail count.

The case is simple to me: both gmail and ymail are worthless as they do not support IMAP. Call me when they do, till then I am a happy paying user of fastmail.fm

The quote below can’t be correct. Here’s proof - QQ - an IM provider in China counts 221 MM *ACTIVE* users six months ago:

http://www.tencent.com/ir/pdf/news20060603a_e.pdf

“The number of IM users worldwide is still very small compared to web-based email users - 80 million IM users v. nearly 500 million web mail users.”

One big reason to stick with gmail.
“conversations” instead of singular email items.

Pretty swift idea on their part. Though I don’t see myself switching back and forth between email and im too often - just once (why would the person leave in the middle of a conversation). Anyways, Yahoo! needs to find ways to reach out to the enterprise user, to negligate the need for Exchange Server or other email servers.

I find Yahoo Beta to be very slow.

Why is gmail better?
- Conversation threads instead of several separate emails
- Speed - Shortcuts - Hit “C” to compose, “R” to reply, “Tab” then “Enter” to send
- Address book - Pulls up emails from the address under the contact data
- Login - You don’t have to enter your password everytime when you return to your account.
- Integration with spreadsheets, calendar, photos, etc…

Mainly…gmail is fast!

couldn’t help point to another site which has a similar chat bubbles thingy a Simple Machines Forum though
http://forum.spaceant.net/index.php?topic=1388.0

I understand those that have had problems with their Yahoo Mail Beta… I have had similar problems - slow slow slow load times are what bothered me the most! At first this was a problem. Now, however, it’s completely usable and fast.

I access it from college daily on their wi-fi super-duper-fast connection and from my home - cable modem. I’m on a 12″ 1.2GHZ iBook G4, so computing speed/power has nothing to do with it. It seems that for some it didn’t work in the beginning, and they have left the Beta. But I suffered through and for some miraculous reason it works like “butter” for me now.

Al, the “miraculous reason” probably has a lot to do with the time being put into making Yahoo! Mail Beta run faster. The most talented DHTML engineers I’ve ever worked with have been busting you-know-what to make the beta faster.

Bill, I’ve been testing Gmail and the new beta for Yahoo Mail and I’ve figured out why I like Yahoo Mail better: organization.

I know everyone who likes Gmail will go on and on about threads and labels, but to me, I can’t stand looking at a large inbox of emails. I want more order that is visual. For me, and I’m pretty anal, I need things tossed into folders (which YM does great with dragging), and an inbox that is clean and contains only things I need to address soon or haven’t read.

The thread thing is okay but once someone changes the subject line, it’s broken. I don’t often keep threads or conversations around long enough anyway. And the thought of “why bother deleting” is a mental thing for me. I don’t keep around things I don’t need. Perhaps it’s my anti-pack rat personality.

I think YM is doing a great job. The speed is prety much the same, it’s got keyboard shortcuts AND the right click button, address book fill in, Login saving, and connections (for the most part) with its siblings (though I want a direct shot into flickr).

Oh, and as a designer and in terms of interface, yes, YM could give us a little more white space, but the problem with GMail is that text everywhere doesn’t help either. Using the argument that their ads are more subtle, the issue becomes I had to hunt around for relevant buttons and menus because the whole page is text placed everywhere… Nothing stood out.

http://www.ypopsemail.com/

Free download that allows POP access for FREE Yahoo accounts… works with most email clients including Outlook - also available for Macs, Linux, and more…

That’s wonderful. Looks like I don’t need to run some many ajax applications all at once.

It’s over. Yahoo ruined Yahoo Mail for good. If they implement that monstrosity, it would be disastrous for them.

Goodbye Yahoo Email, Hello Gmail!

This post is totally lopsided IMO.

I’m pretty sure that the majority of Mail Beta bashing would be gone if this product was by Google. Apart from some speed issues (it is beta), it’s an amazing product.

I am very happy that I can use Yahoo Mail Beta. I see the world much smaller with the features that Yahoo gives me. I think I can manage the electronic world where we live in better. I believe we are at the beginning of a revolution in the electronic world. I trust the Yahoo enginners team.

Google:

o fast
o simple - text links, no need for graphical buttons
o UNCLUTTERED — it really is just focused on mail
o improving all the time

Yahoo:

o My first gripe used to be speed, but it’s gotten MUCH better
o CLUTTERED like mad … there are so many ads and other things it’s so confusing. Yahoo needs a streamlined mail only interface.
o I can’t stand the outlook type layout … ick. I’d rather click and see the e-mail body.

Well it’s a tech improvement with Yahoo Beta mail,I don’t see a tab if I wanted to save the email in a folder?Otherwise it has well protection,spam and junk email tab.And How about to use a special stationary for certain occassion like Xmas and Valentine day.

Your figures do not add up…There were 487 million Web based email addresses. Yahoo! with 250 million; MSN Hotmail with 228 million ; AOL with 50 million and Gmail with 51 million . These add up to 579 million web based email addresses.
Have I read it wrong ?
Luis

Yahoo and Hotmail both have a pleasant interface. It is a shame that the GMail interface is so ugly.

Get the real email account numbers from comScore - these numbers are way out of whack.

BADMAHMOODTEKAB