Yahoo! Launches New E-mail Service

Yahoo! is giving its popular e-mail service a long-promised facelift and also inviting all of its 284 million users to upgrade to the revamped version. This version of Yahoo! Mail makes it even easier for people to share, organise and store online conversations and media content with a focus on improved performance, enhanced spam protection and a customisable inbox. Yahoo! Mail is available in 43 markets and 26 languages around the world.

The company will also make the latest version of Yahoo! Mail available to its global partners, including Nokia.

Social Infusion: People can instantly respond to messages from Facebook, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Mail and other webmail providers with a new easy reply bar. Additionally, people can view photo slideshows, inline videos and more from within their inboxes. People can also view and share notifications and updates from Twitter, Facebook and Zynga from a new Updates tab.

Conversations Aren’t Just E-mail: When people want to compose an IM, SMS or e-mail they will find their most frequent contacts and lists shown to them. People can now also chat with Facebook friends alongside Windows Live and Yahoo! Messenger contacts and view all of their past IM and text conversations within Yahoo! Mail.

Tailor Your Inbox: People can choose from over 50 themes and stationery options to express their personalities and customise how they view messages and contacts.

App-ify Mail: New, easy-to-use applications help people be more productive and organised right from their inboxes. People can now track their online orders with the All My Purchases app, get removed from unwanted newsletters using the Unsubscriber app or send mega files using Attach Large Files by YouSendIt.

Mail Search Redefined: A mail search experience leverages Yahoo!’s wealth of search science and technology to help people get answers faster by finding the right e-mails. When searching through Yahoo! Mail, a left-hand refinement column appears, letting users easily navigate, sort and narrow the search results by sender, attachment file, date, or folder location.

Lightning Speed: Leveraging Yahoo!’s cloud technology, Yahoo! Mail provides performance that is twice as fast as previous versions of Yahoo! Mail, even in regions where only basic Internet speeds are offered.

Spam Buster: Advanced SpamGuard technology and a new anti-phishing platform have reduced spam reports by 60 per cent and help protect people from e-mail hackers and unwanted instant message conversations. Yahoo! Mail blocks more than 550 billion spam messages per month, the company claims.

“Yahoo!’s vision for online communications brings together all the tools that people use to connect — e-mail, chat, SMS, and social updates — and makes it easier for them to share content and engage in conversations with the people that matter most to them,” said Blake Irving, chief product officer, Yahoo!. “We’re delivering on this strategy with the latest version of Yahoo! Mail, providing our hundreds of millions of users worldwide with a fun, engaging and constantly connected experience across desktop, mobile and tablet devices that keeps the conversation going – anytime, anywhere.”

To upgrade an existing Yahoo! Mail account or create a new Yahoo! Mail account, go to overview.mail.yahoo.com and click the ‘Upgrade Now’ button.