Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications

    Yahoo Mail Comes Out of Its Social Shell

    By
    Clint Boulton
    -
    January 10, 2008
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Yahoo plans to regain some of the luster it lost to Google, Facebook and other Internet specialists with a two-headed attack aimed at making the Web more social and mobile.

      By focusing on these two areas, Yahoo is attempting to solidify its position as the starting point for everything users want to find online, company co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang told the crowd at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Jan. 7.

      Yang previewed a test version of the next generation of Yahoo Mail, code-named Inbox 2.0, which determines a user’s most relevant personal connections across Yahoo and multiple social networks. The idea is to give Yahoo’s more than 250 million Mail users a smarter application that prioritizes the most important messages from the most important people.

      A test of Yang’s inbox showed an aggregate count of his e-mail messages, instant messages, voice mails and text messages, along with a weather report and news headlines. By clicking a button called “simplify your inbox,” Yang was able to see an aggregate count of not only his connections in Yahoo, but in the MySpace and LinkedIn social networks.

      After clicking on the Yahoo account, the Mail application listed his most important connections first, including his wife and top Yahoo officials, based on Yang’s frequency of accessing those connections. Upon returning to the Yahoo account page, Yang saw a list of messages ranked according to importance of the person.

      Socializing e-mail makes sense; e-mail is the primary repository of social networks such as Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn, containing personal, family and business connections. Yahoo is looking to blend e-mail with social connections to keep users engaged and on Yahoo.

      Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang said giving Web mail some social glue could bridge the gap between products that live on their own islands, set apart from events, photos, instant messaging and e-mail.

      “By centralizing the main communications and aggregating on the Yahoo mail platform, the opportunity to centralize and add value to users is at hand,” Owyang told eWEEK Jan. 8. “The challenge will be in Yahoo gently deploying these features, educating users and being flexible, changing the communication habits that users are accustomed to takes time.”

      To read more about Yahoo’s social networking river, click here.

      Yahoo also intends to open up its Mail Web e-mail application to let third parties and developers create and access applications, Yang said. While the right-hand side of the Mail screen showed Yang’s accounts, the left-hand side offered a number of applications Yang could mash up, including Yahoo Maps and external widgets from eBay, MTV and Evite.

      When Yahoo co-founder David Filo sent Yang a dinner suggestion via e-mail, Yang was able to drag and drop that invite from his inbox into Yahoo Maps to see not only where the restaurant was located in Las Vegas, but also ratings and other information about the establishment, as well as a preview of Filo’s profile, listing his dining preferences.

      The mashup then went and made similar connections for a relevant group of people in Yang’s social graph, and Yang was able to invite them by dragging and dropping their profiles into the Evite application integrated in Yahoo Mail.

      If Yahoo enjoys Facebook’s good fortune—getting thousands of programmers building widgets for you—the possibilities to get users coming to Yahoo, and possible clicking on ads, are plentiful.

      Gilbane Group analyst Geoffrey Bock said he thinks Yahoo is on to something important because our use of e-mail had been somewhat ossified by the focus on one-to-one, or one-to-many communication.

      For consumers, Bock said Yahoo might be able to integrate with another address book or a calendar to help parents organize a play group or a kids’ birthday party. However, he also said e-mail has to still ensure the privacy of the groups using it.

      “What Yahoo needs to do is rethink the whole way in which social computing can help people in their everyday lives,” Bock told eWEEK on Jan. 8.

      In the long run, Yahoo could conceivably move this Mail mashup party to the mobile front, the company’s other main point of attack going forward. Yang and company officials earlier unveiled the Sunnyvale, Calif., company’s Mobile Developer Platform and Go 3.0 mobile service offering, as well as a redesigned mobile home page.

      Yahoo’s mobile software effort includes a plan to let consumers access widgets or light applications that they can use on almost any Web-based mobile phone, including Apple’s iPhone, and any Web operating system, such as Google’s Android platform.

      Clint Boulton

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      GoodData CEO Roman Stanek on Business Intelligence...

      James Maguire - May 4, 2022 0
      I spoke with Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, about business intelligence, data as a service, and the frustration that many executives have with data...
      Read more
      IT Management

      Intuit’s Nhung Ho on AI for the...

      James Maguire - May 13, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nhung Ho, Vice President of AI at Intuit, about adoption of AI in the small and medium-sized business market, and how...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×