Web mail providers revamp services
Friday, 7 September 2007
, Posted by Unknown at 00:14
Web mail providers revamp servicesYahoo!, MSN, and Google get ready to update e-mail
Free web mail has been a commodity spurred from the Internet for over a decade. The development of web-based email services has remained mainly stagnant until recently though, with updates mostly limited to increased storage space, eventually becoming more than any regular e-mail user will ever use. With the exception of Gmail, the new services are not available for widespread public use as of yet, but have been released as beta software to a smaller population of users, and will be released soon. As part of something called “Web 2.0”, the email providers have updated their interfaces to be more like a robust desktop application,and less like a simple web page.The new Yahoo! Mail resembles Microsoft Outlook, allowing you to simply click on a message in your inbox, and the message will load in a pane below, without having the need to reload the entire page. Another new feature, tabs, allows users to do multiple tasks at once more easily. For instance, one can have multiple new messages open at the same time and switch between each of them instantly by clicking on its associated tab. Tabs are useful for copy and pasting or referencing information from different messages, and makes the process of writing new e-mails much more convenient. Windows Live Mail also resembles Microsoft Outlook, but Gmail takes on a different, albeit more original look. Gmail does not have the same level of functionality as Yahoo! Mail, although it does load significantly faster.Yahoo! Mail also replaces aged check-boxes and drop-down menus, in favor of simply dragging and dropping messages into different folders. This is one of the main features noticeably different from the other web-based e-mail services. Although organizing e-mails into different folders in Yahoo! Mail is quick and painless, it lags behind its competitors in searching and organizing them. Gmail allows the user to add labels to emails, which makes organizing them more flexible than with folders. Nonetheless, most users will still find folders to be the quickest and simplest method in organizing their e-mails.Both Yahoo! And Google include integrated instant messenger chat in their e-mail services. If the person you are e-mailing is online, it is much more convenient to send an instant message than waiting on them to send a reply back by e-mail. Yahoo! is rolling out their chat feature over time, and not all beta users have access. Since users of Yahoo! Mail, can only chat with other users of Yahoo! Mail, and vis-à-vis for Gmail, it seems that chat in Yahoo! Mail may be more useful since it has the most users worldwide, although it does depend on the individual.Shortcut keys also create a much better experience using Yahoo! Mail. For example, pressing the “n” key will create a new message, and pressing the “r” key will create a reply to an e-mail currently being viewed. Gmail and Hotmail also have keyboard shortcuts. All upgrades to these e-mail services include more storage space for e-mails than any single user will likely ever fill. Gmail currently offers almost 3GB of storage. Yahoo! and Hotmail both include 1GB of storage, although Yahoo! has announced plans to soon provide unlimited email storage.
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