Yahoo! You can now have the Yahoo! email address yahoo want, maybe.

Stuart Corner
Friday, 20 June 2008 02:16

Business IT - Networking

Yahoo! has bowed to pressure from its 266 million email customers fed up with not being able to get a Yahoo! email address that is close to their name: it has made two additional domain names available: ymail.com and rocketmail.com.

Like yahoo.com the new names will also be available in localised versions for different countries. Yahoo! recently commissioned a survey conducted by Harris Interactive. It found, not surprisingly, that the majority of adults thought the most important attribute of an email address was that it be easy to remember. Seventy percent wanted to have some portion of their name in their email address.

Yahoo! launched its free email service in 1997 and has been operating rocketmail.com for a small number of customers since that time, following its acquisition of the original operator.

The problem of name shortages on Yahoo!, and other free email services, has not emerged overnight so one might wonder why it has taken Yahoo! so long to respond. Some commentators have suggested that the introduction of new domain names could dilute awareness of the core Yahoo! brand, without bringing an real benefit.

However it seems that Yahoo! had little choice but to respond to customer pressure. John Kremer, vice-president of Yahoo Mail was reported saying: ""There was a hesitation to expand the namespace, [but] the level of customers complaining in our surveys got to a point where we said we need to make this happen."

And it is not just individuals wanting more memorable names. A handful of names are being reserved for a charity auction on eBay. Yahoo and eBay will offer addresses such as 'soccermom' and 'greenguru' with proceeds going to one of five non-profit organisations: the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Ocean Conservancy, Point Foundation, Right To Play, and World Wildlife Fund. Winning bidders will choose which organisation their funds will benefit.