The New Yahoo Mail
August 29, 2007
Last Monday the news of Yahoo cut off its “Beta” tag on its Mail features were coming in. Herewith Yahoo finally released their crash-test dynamic web apps that were introduced back in September 2006.
I haven’t been using my Yahoo Mail account for ages now. Ever since Gmail came to town, the ever-so-static Yahoo Mail weren’t appealing no more. Yesterday I give it a go once again. Okay, much have change in its new interface, kudos to Yahoo for that. It seems the dynamic of AJAX has enclosed the entire page to make Yahoo Mail looks shiny and much more interactive.
The first thing that comes up was the “Outlook-Style” panel in the Mail interface. The interface was consisting of three parts the left part, the reading pane in the middle, and the not-so-important banner ads pane in the right side. This is the thing that irritates me so much. That huge banner ad spends ¼ parts of the pages that’s located at the right side. I mean this is too much, you can’t expect a lightweight AJAX web-based e-mail when you had that big banner. Why can’t they put a couple of related ads there like what Gmail did?
One of the much talk about features on this version of Yahoo Mail was the text-messaging service. So basically now you can send a text-message to your friend’s cell phone right from Mail. Unfortunately I can’t try this nifty features since it’s only applied on certain countries such as U.S, India, Philippines and Canada. I’m not sure when it can be use globally.
The integrated RSS reader that they provided (can be accessed by clicking the “All RSS Feeds” link) weren’t good enough. You can choose feeds that you want to subscribe by browsing their Editor’s Pick and Recommendation. But I’m having difficulty to add an RSS feeds of my own since it’s seems that they only gave a search field for finding a certain sites. And they don’t provide categorization on their RSS Feeds either. So it wasn’t good enough feature.
The integrated instant messaging feature combined their famous Yahoo Messenger with Yahoo Mail. It’s a bold move, but I’m happy with this idea, since I’m rather sick with the stand-alone application of Yahoo Messenger and have turn to solutions like Pidgin or the web-based Meebo.
These IM features were rather concealed. You have to click the “Contacts” link; from there, it will show your contact list. To start chatting, you have to change your Status (located at the upper left of the page) to “Available”. Then you must click the yellow avatar on the contact that you want to chat with. This process is rather daunting for a newbie. The interface are similar than the real Yahoo Messenger but the feature are basic. Don’t expect many features of YM to show up there. So I think this integrated IM is handy when you want to chat to someone straight away from e-mail. But don’t use for day-to-day activities.
All in all, though all those nifty AJAX feature will certainly makes Yahoo Mail back in web-based mail business, the performance are still lack of that in Gmail. I personally still believe in Gmail and its interface is the right gun for me. No Yahoo, your “Unlimited Storage for e-mails” weren’t convincing enough to make me switch back yet. You got to give me something more special than that.
But worry not, Yahoo. You’re still the number one web-based e-mail service that is use in Indonesia. Right, people? :)
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Patrick G. van Diest a.k.a "patvandiest" thinks he can fulfill his "world domination scheme" by writing in this weblog in his spare time. We'll see about that in the upcoming future. Now, just expect writings on random geek things that may interest you. Oh yeah, did you know that he works as web developer on a tech magazine...? More
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Okay, life must go on, right? So with the spirit of Sumpah Pemuda and the recent festive of Pesta Blogger 2007. I officially announce that:
It's just around the corner, not very far away.
The reason? Well you can say that I'm getting bored with Wordpress and I want to try something new. But trust me, I won't move it anywhere else in the future, I will use patvandiest.com as my main blog, always. I promise you that!
So please... please update your bookmark, I will forever graceful if you do that. But if you are reading my blog through my Feedburner account, worry not, I will automatically update the link. That goes to my other social networking related link.
I won't delete this blog, though. I will keep it as past archives of my writings.
So, sorry for this inconvinience. I hope you don't mind. See you at my other room.
Sincerely Yours,
Patrick Gerard van Diest
- #
www.patvandiest.com- I definitely will go to Pesta Blogger 2007. I've register there this afternoon, hope they approved my application. Will go with Rifie. It would be fun!
- # - And so begin the brick wars! On the axis side, it's Steve Jobs and its Apple. The Allied side consists of peoples who unlocked their iPhone. But nooo, they're not the only ones. According to Scoble, some regular iPhone user has the same problem too after the update that Apple released. It's getting hotter now. :) - #
- Remember Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange"? here's behind-the-scenes footage to relive that legendary movie (via Bedazzled)
- # - Ouh yes! know I now the first item in my "to-be-bought" list for Dody when he goes to Singapore next month. The new Dashboard Confessional album "The Shade of Poison Trees" (release date: October 2nd). Yaay!
- # - So I got bored (again) with the last theme. I had to change it, but not much though. So, here it is in it's full glory. - #