Yahoo integrates online network into its new email programme

Jun 5, 2011, 3:06 GMT

London - Yahoo is planning to integrate online services into a new email programme. The new version of its mail programme, Yahoo Mail, is designed to create some competition for social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter or photo services like Picasa and Flickr, merging such services with the personal communication of mail or messenger systems.

The new Yahoo Mail has already made it successfully through beta testing and is slowly being introduced to more than 284 million users worldwide, says Yahoo Manager Mark Drasutis.

The new Yahoo Mail gives users a new answering window (Quick Reply) to allow immediate responses to new emails and posts on Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo Groups. A slideshow function allows viewing of pictures and videos from sites like Flickr, Picasa and YouTube directly in the mail view window.

Additionally, an Updates service lets users post new information to online services like Twitter, Facebook and Zynga directly from their inbox.

Because Yahoo gives users nearly limitless storage space, users never again have to delete emails. They can even start archiving their Instant Messenger chats along with their mails, says Andrew Molyneux, senior product marketing manager for Yahoo Mail. Anyone who doesn't want to save their chats can deactivate the archiving function.

Yahoo also hopes to make it easier to send large packets of data, which have in the past sometimes never arrived at their destination because the recipient's mailbox had limits on the volumes it could receive or because it was already too full.

The YouSendIt function will make this possible, allowing secure transmission of data files up to 100 megabytes. If that's too much for the recipient, a space saving link is transmitted instead, which the recipient can use to access the file. That feature can be found in the same area for new features where the photo manipulation programme Picnic is lodged.

Current customers who take no action will find that the new version supplants the older one automatically sometime in the coming month. To actively change to the new version, go to http://overview.mail.yahoo.com.