The Email Wars

So what does this mean for marketers? Not sure yet. But it does solidify that email is a heavily used application in daily life. The fact that they are integrating SMS and Text Messaging into email speaks volumes that email is the top ingredient for making it all work. One note is that with either the Yahoo client and Gmail client, you can forward your email through it as an additional spam filter before you forward it to your own email account (corporate) to give it an extra cleansing. We have a few guys on our tech team that do this now. So it you aren’t getting through at these two ISPs, you need to work on that as many more people will see the value in a comp email account and use it to provide an additional filter.

From TechCrunch:

The new Yahoo Mail interface went into public beta in September 2006, although Yahoo was testing it long before that. Tonight ( 2 days back) Yahoo takes the “beta” label off of the product and makes it the default interface for all new Yahoo mail accounts.

Yahoo mail already has an integrated RSS reader and instant messaging. They also recently announced unlimited storage for all mail users.

They are also releasing a few new features.

Shortcuts: Mail now has a number of intelligent shortcuts. Things like addresses, places, dates, contact information, etc. are underlined with blue dots. Click on the link and see a mashup with maps (for addresses), travel guides (for places), calendar (for dates), etc. New services are being added regularly.

SMS/Text Messaging: Yahoo wants you to use their mail application whenever you contact your friends, however you contact them. In addition to emailing or instant messaging clients, you can now send them a text message from the mail interface. Their responses also come in directly to Yahoo Mail. It currently works for U.S., India, Philippines and Canadian mobile numbers.

Is Yahoo Mail a better webmail application than GMail? In our comparisons GMail always comes out on top, although the main reason is tagging of messages and the fact that GMail gives free forwarding and POP access to the account. Yahoo still charges $20/year for forwarding or POP access.

The new interface is the final realization of Yahoo’s 2004 acquisition of Ajax pioneer Oddpost. The new mail product is based largely on ideas first launched by Oddpost in 2002.

Startups aren’t just sitting around as the big guys upgrade their webmail apps, though. Our favorite product in this space is Orgoo, which launches this fall and lets users pull in mail and IM accounts from any number of providers. Foldera is another promising product in this space.