As of August 26, 2007, the new Yahoo! Mail came out of Beta period. The development of what has now become the new interface, started since July 2004, although it is possible other prototypes were in development before then. It is currently compatible with Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Safari as well as Camino and other Gecko based browsers. (As part of Yahoo!'s plan to eventually upgrade all of their sites to be compatible with Firefox. Although it is usable under Opera, there are slight visual problems regarding the layout. [citation needed]
In September 2005 Yahoo! began beta testing a significantly enhanced version of their e-mail service, based on Ajax scripting acquired from Oddpost, along with new philosophical approaches to email, including the Oddpost design philosophy (which Google made heavy use of in Gmail):
Given that the All-New Yahoo! Mail is based on Oddpost, it features the same underlying code base, including the implementation of this design concept to minimize the amount of data sent during an email session by creating a JavaScript UI engine on the client side and sending "Datapacks" instead of reloading the whole interface on every click like a traditional webmail service (e.g. traditional Yahoo! Mail). This makes the service much faster than its counterparts.
However, unlike Oddpost, All-New Yahoo! Mail runs on a variety of OSes and browsers, and runs perfectly under Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox. On February 13, 2008, Yahoo! announced on the Yahoo! Mail blog that it would begin supporting version 3 of the Mac OS X default browser Safari, as well as the Mac versions of Firefox.
The look and feel of the new version is designed to mimic a desktop e-mail client, and it offers unlimited storage space, tabbed emails, RSS feeds, drag-and-drop capabilities, advanced keyboard shortcuts, advanced search, integration with Yahoo! Calendar and Messenger, Domain Keys, address auto-complete and more.
The All-New Yahoo! Mail also has a mascot called Liam, who is basically a little boy, who is shown in the "Help" panel as well as in the loading screen. Liam is "mail" spelled backward.
Introduction
Wide-scale beta release of the new version was introduced in late 2006. In November 2006, the Mail Beta team announced plans of integrating Yahoo! Messenger functionality with the Mail Beta interface. This service was deployed in March, 2007.
Public and critical reaction to the new product has been positive, although a number of users have encountered speed issues, which can render the client very difficult to use, especially on older hardware. Each update to the Beta has included significant speed improvements, and the Mail Beta team is still focused on improving speed issues. For example, the earlier versions of Mail Beta featured a loading screen every time you access mail. However, with various updates Mail Beta now appears immediately (no loading screen).
On August 26, 2007, Yahoo! Mail left beta and now the two versions which exist are known as Yahoo! Mail (the default interface) and Yahoo! Mail Classic (an updated version of the current interface). The announcement was made on the Yahoo! Mail blog by John Kremer, Vice President, Yahoo! Mail and the major improvements relate to intelligent shortcuts, SMS Messaging, and improved search.
The final version was released on October 9, 2007.
Features
Some of the new or improved features included in the New Yahoo! Mail are:
Yahoo! Calendar integration
Yahoo! Messenger integration
Windows Live Messenger integration
SMS Messaging in certain countries
Keyboard shortcuts
Unlimited storage
Improved search facilities
Applications (Piknic, Flickr, Wordpress and more)
In addition, an Easter egg was added called a Subject-O-Matique. This hidden feature displays a random message in the subject line when the subject button is clicked. The messages range from cultural references ("I AM the walrus") to sarcastic ("If you don't tell lies, at least you don't have to remember what you have said.") to unusual and outlandish ("the art of driving a giant, nuclear powered duck").
On December 15, 2008, Yahoo! Mail introduced features to make it more social.
In September 2005 Yahoo! began beta testing a significantly enhanced version of their e-mail service, based on Ajax scripting acquired from Oddpost, along with new philosophical approaches to email, including the Oddpost design philosophy (which Google made heavy use of in Gmail):
Given that the All-New Yahoo! Mail is based on Oddpost, it features the same underlying code base, including the implementation of this design concept to minimize the amount of data sent during an email session by creating a JavaScript UI engine on the client side and sending "Datapacks" instead of reloading the whole interface on every click like a traditional webmail service (e.g. traditional Yahoo! Mail). This makes the service much faster than its counterparts.
However, unlike Oddpost, All-New Yahoo! Mail runs on a variety of OSes and browsers, and runs perfectly under Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox. On February 13, 2008, Yahoo! announced on the Yahoo! Mail blog that it would begin supporting version 3 of the Mac OS X default browser Safari, as well as the Mac versions of Firefox.
The look and feel of the new version is designed to mimic a desktop e-mail client, and it offers unlimited storage space, tabbed emails, RSS feeds, drag-and-drop capabilities, advanced keyboard shortcuts, advanced search, integration with Yahoo! Calendar and Messenger, Domain Keys, address auto-complete and more.
The All-New Yahoo! Mail also has a mascot called Liam, who is basically a little boy, who is shown in the "Help" panel as well as in the loading screen. Liam is "mail" spelled backward.
Introduction
Wide-scale beta release of the new version was introduced in late 2006. In November 2006, the Mail Beta team announced plans of integrating Yahoo! Messenger functionality with the Mail Beta interface. This service was deployed in March, 2007.
Public and critical reaction to the new product has been positive, although a number of users have encountered speed issues, which can render the client very difficult to use, especially on older hardware. Each update to the Beta has included significant speed improvements, and the Mail Beta team is still focused on improving speed issues. For example, the earlier versions of Mail Beta featured a loading screen every time you access mail. However, with various updates Mail Beta now appears immediately (no loading screen).
On August 26, 2007, Yahoo! Mail left beta and now the two versions which exist are known as Yahoo! Mail (the default interface) and Yahoo! Mail Classic (an updated version of the current interface). The announcement was made on the Yahoo! Mail blog by John Kremer, Vice President, Yahoo! Mail and the major improvements relate to intelligent shortcuts, SMS Messaging, and improved search.
The final version was released on October 9, 2007.
Features
Some of the new or improved features included in the New Yahoo! Mail are:
Yahoo! Calendar integration
Yahoo! Messenger integration
Windows Live Messenger integration
SMS Messaging in certain countries
Keyboard shortcuts
Unlimited storage
Improved search facilities
Applications (Piknic, Flickr, Wordpress and more)
In addition, an Easter egg was added called a Subject-O-Matique. This hidden feature displays a random message in the subject line when the subject button is clicked. The messages range from cultural references ("I AM the walrus") to sarcastic ("If you don't tell lies, at least you don't have to remember what you have said.") to unusual and outlandish ("the art of driving a giant, nuclear powered duck").
On December 15, 2008, Yahoo! Mail introduced features to make it more social.