Quick Look at the New Yahoo Mail

Today Yahoo opened up its next-generation Web-mail interface that in my humble opinion is the best attempt yet at Web-based e-mail. Yahoo also announced today it will be folding in several new features and improving performance of its Web-based e-mail client.

Access to Yahoo Mail's new desktop-like interface had previously only been available to select beta-testers. In 2005, when Yahoo Mail beta first debuted, PC World called Yahoo Mail's beta interface and functionality "graceful, powerful, and nuanced."

Even after two years since the beta first surfaced, this Yahoo Mail interface is still way ahead of the competition in delivering a superior Web-mail experience.

Yahoo better keep innovating and adding features. The steady march of innovation from competing Web-mail services is breathless. Microsoft just this month upped the storage ante for its free Hotmail service to 5GB. That's still less than Yahoo which says it has no limit for e-mail storage. Google has added support to view PowerPoint slide shows within GMail that are received as GMail e-mail attachments using its Docs & Spreadsheets suite of applications.

The Beta is Over

Besides the interface, new to Yahoo Mail are features such as one that allows you to send SMS text messages to mobile phone users from your Yahoo Mail account. This is part of Yahoo's triple-play communications offering giving you the ability to either send traditional e-mail, contact people online via instant messaging directly from the Yahoo Mail client, or reach contacts by way of their cell phones via SMS text messages.

However, you won't be able to send text messages today via Yahoo Mail. Yahoo says text messaging support and other select features will show up slowly over the next few weeks.

One feature that can be taken advantage of is integrated instant messaging into the Web mail client. When in Yahoo Mail, you can see if people in your address book are online and logged into a Yahoo communications service; if they are, you can chat switch to an IM chat in Yahoo Mail and begin talking in real time. This features supports Yahoo?s instant messaging service and has been extended to support Microsoft Windows Live Messenger.

Slicker Than GMail

The most significant upgrade to Yahoo Mail remains its interface. And that feature, in all its glory can be taken advantage of starting now for existing and new users.

Yahoo Mail's new interface is in a word "slick". It relies heavily on Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) which gives it a noticeably different useability features compared to other leading Web-based e-mail programs like Google's Gmail.

The reliance on Ajax allows Yahoo Mail to give you a Web e-mail experience that closely mimics desktop-like features. You first notice Yahoo Mail now features a three-pane layout mirrors that of desktop apps such as Microsoft's Outlook Express and Mozilla's Thunderbird.

Those who like features found in desktop e-mail programs such as Outlook-like hot-keys will welcome Yahoo Mail and its support of the ability to use the and keys to select multiple messages and drag and drop messages into folders the same way you can with desktop e-mail applications.

Yahoo Delivers Some New E-Mail Features

Also genuinely new today, Yahoo says, is improvements in the performance and speed of Yahoo Mail, as well as an expansion of advanced e-mail search functions.

Because not everybody will embrace the new version right away, giving people the option of using the "classic" version of Yahoo Mail.

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