Yahoo merges mail and IM, blends SMS

Stephen Withers
Monday, 27 August 2007 07:55

Your IT - Home IT

The new version of Yahoo's web mail service delivers a more unified view of personal communication, aligning mail, instant messaging and - in some geographies - SMS.

The SMS service will be initially available to  users in the United States, Canada, India and the Philippines. Users can send and receive SMSes as easily as instant messages. The service is free of charge to the Yahoo user, so its extension relies on Yahoo being able to strike deals with mobile operators in other countries.

Yahoo Mail's IM also interoperates with Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger.

Another new - or more accurately, returning - feature is the way the US version can recognise certain types of data (eg, addresses) within messages and then offering relevant actions such as displaying a map.

The new-look service has a more modern look and feel as found in some other  web mail systems such as Google's Gmail and Apple's .Mac. By doing away with the need to completely refresh pages every time the user performs an action, these services more faithfully mirror the operation of desktop mail software.

The beta of the new-look service has been around for the best part of a year, but it has been tuned up prior to its general rollout over the next several weeks. Users will be able to opt for the classic version of the site if they prefer.