Sending text messages from Yahoo Mail
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
YAHOO Inc said on Sunday it was giving its email users more ways to reach friends and online contacts by allowing them to trade messages with mobile phone users.
The new email-to-phone connection is one of the features the Internet media giant plans to add as it makes available to the more than 250 million Yahoo Mail users a new version of the world's most popular email program in coming weeks.
The Yahoo Mail overhaul is part of a drive to transform its email franchise into more of a social activity that blends the convenience of instant communication with the implicit network of relationships found in one's online address book.
Already this year, Yahoo has been testing another feature that lets its email users communicate using conventional email or via instant messages using either Yahoo Messenger or Microsoft Live Messenger.
"Our goal is to make (Yahoo) Mail a more social experience," John Kremer, vice-president of Yahoo Mail, said in a phone interview. "We really look at ourselves as sitting on top of the largest dormant social network out there."
Kremer said by upgrading the email service technology, the company aims to lay the groundwork for adding more social-networking features later this year.
Yahoo is scrambling to make its services more relevant as many Internet users spend more and more time on social networks like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook and less time passing through portals like Yahoo, AOL.com or Microsoft's MSN.
The new version of Yahoo Mail gives users three options for communicating with contacts through email, online instant-messaging or text-messaging to mobile phone users. Users can switch between the three, depending on which is most convenient.
Initially, the text-messaging feature will be available to Yahoo Mail members in the US, Canada, India and the Philippines.
To text a friend, users simply enter a mobile phone number, type a text message in Yahoo Mail and hit send.
Yahoo Mail had 254 million users in July, according to audience measurement firm comScore Inc, while Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail had 224 million. Yahoo plans to make its upgraded email program the standard option for all new users of the free service. It will upgrade users worldwide over a six-week period, Kremer said.
Existing users will be prompted to upgrade, although users of slower dial-up connections or those comfortable with Yahoo's "classic" email can continue to use the older version. The key difference with the older email program is how the new service lets users "drag and drop" email into folders, speeding the time it takes to sort through incoming messages.Reuters
The new email-to-phone connection is one of the features the Internet media giant plans to add as it makes available to the more than 250 million Yahoo Mail users a new version of the world's most popular email program in coming weeks.
The Yahoo Mail overhaul is part of a drive to transform its email franchise into more of a social activity that blends the convenience of instant communication with the implicit network of relationships found in one's online address book.
Already this year, Yahoo has been testing another feature that lets its email users communicate using conventional email or via instant messages using either Yahoo Messenger or Microsoft Live Messenger.
"Our goal is to make (Yahoo) Mail a more social experience," John Kremer, vice-president of Yahoo Mail, said in a phone interview. "We really look at ourselves as sitting on top of the largest dormant social network out there."
Kremer said by upgrading the email service technology, the company aims to lay the groundwork for adding more social-networking features later this year.
Yahoo is scrambling to make its services more relevant as many Internet users spend more and more time on social networks like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook and less time passing through portals like Yahoo, AOL.com or Microsoft's MSN.
The new version of Yahoo Mail gives users three options for communicating with contacts through email, online instant-messaging or text-messaging to mobile phone users. Users can switch between the three, depending on which is most convenient.
Initially, the text-messaging feature will be available to Yahoo Mail members in the US, Canada, India and the Philippines.
To text a friend, users simply enter a mobile phone number, type a text message in Yahoo Mail and hit send.
Yahoo Mail had 254 million users in July, according to audience measurement firm comScore Inc, while Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail had 224 million. Yahoo plans to make its upgraded email program the standard option for all new users of the free service. It will upgrade users worldwide over a six-week period, Kremer said.
Existing users will be prompted to upgrade, although users of slower dial-up connections or those comfortable with Yahoo's "classic" email can continue to use the older version. The key difference with the older email program is how the new service lets users "drag and drop" email into folders, speeding the time it takes to sort through incoming messages.Reuters
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