John Ryan’s Blog

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When Gmail launched there was much hype and excitement, about this revolutionary mail service, that would change the way web based e-mail was handled. Much of this hype stemmed from the fact that you needed an invite to use the service, and being human everyone wanted what seemed like something they may have to wait for. Indeed Gmail has changed the web mail market, and forced many providers out of the dark ages, and even left some mail services in the shadows. Such as Hotmail which is well overdue a makeover and the proposed name change doing the rounds on the net is that it is now to be called Windows Live Hotmail (eh?). All this aside however, the most recent web mail provider to update its service is Yahoo Mail; this update seems to be designed to wake up Yahoo Mail and keep it in the game.

First of all the New Yahoo Mail, does not force you to use the new version (just yet anyway), presumably this is because it’s still in Beta. I just recently selected the option to use the new version (something – until now, I was avoiding) and it is a familiar interface I have to say. It almost seems as if someone has taken a mail program and stuffed it into your browser! It is simple to do the usual tasks, such as drag and drop into folders. The Compose screen boasts the usual rich text features, and loads with ease, unlike other web mail applications that try to use these features, they usually end up crashing. Additional features in Yahoo Mail is the preview pane, which allows you to preview mail before opening (much like Outlook and Apple Mail). The other cool feature is tabbed windows, when you open a new mail it opens in a tab (not a browser tab), meaning you can switch between your inbox and mail messages.

To date I have had Zero spam with Yahoo Mail, unlike my gmail account which seemed to have been plagued with Spam messages, however, the coolest feature of Yahoo Mail Beta, is the ability to talk to your Yahoo Messenger contacts, much like Gmails facility to talk to your contacts in real time. I have yet to use this feature, as to be honest, I do not use Yahoo Messenger, and it currently does not allow a connection to Microsoft’s Live Messenger, still though – a very cool feature.