Yahoo! Mail Updates Blog
As part of the RSS rollout, we set up an updates blog for mail. Partially so we’d have a shiny “Web 2.0″ way of telling you what’s new. But I’m sure part of it was also intended to make sure no Yahoo! Mail Beta user saw the new RSS feature without being subscribed to any feeds. Cool idea, I think.
Anyway, it’s been pointed out that the updates blog uses WordPress. It’s true, I saw it when it was still using the Kubrick Theme. I’m glad they switched off the default. It’s not that Kubrick doesn’t look nice, it just makes it seem like you’re not putting much effort into your blog.
One thing that’s a little dismaying is that we don’t give a shout out to WordPress on the blog. My blog has a nice “Powered by WordPress” attribution at the bottom of every page. But you’ll see no mention of WordPress on the updates blog. The Yahoo! Search Blog has attribution for Movable Type, so why can’t the updates blog have attribution for WordPress? Lame.
Update: I almost forgot, as Guillaume points out, we put up the new tutorial as well.
December 3rd, 2005 at 12:09 pm
I’m really excited that they came up with a blog. Also i think it looks just perfect, really pro, really “yahoo”. just plain perfect.
I didn’t notice they didn’t put a “powered by WP” line, though as a WP user it looked obvious at first sight.
cheers
December 4th, 2005 at 11:36 am
It looked obvious when we were still using the Kubrick theme. Now that we’ve switched to a home-rolled theme it’s a bit more difficult.
December 4th, 2005 at 11:59 am
When will the RSS feed for yahoo mail updates be updated
December 4th, 2005 at 1:19 pm
Whenever we post an update to the blog.
December 7th, 2005 at 8:56 am
Hi Ryan,
First, I just want to thank you for keeping this great blog. I’ve been looking forward to the public beta release of the new Y! Mail for some time (I was blown away by Oddpost when I first tried it just over a year ago), and your blog has only served to further pique my interest. It looks like you guys are seriously ratcheting up OP and making an exceptional product.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been granted access to the beta, so I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask you:
1. Will the new Y! Mail permit users to “Find related messages” like in Outlook? I’ve always found this to be a very useful feature (essentially a search feature) that allows one to easilly consolidate email strings in no time. As a reminder, this feature is displayed as a bar on the top of the preview pane that reads:
You replied (or forwarded) on MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM AM/PM.
(Upon right or left clicking this bar a button appears that reads: “Find related messages”. By clicking this button a search is automatically initiated. This search is just:
Conversation is (exactly) [subject line (sans Re: or Fw:)]
2. I understand that the new Y! Mail will continue to include message flagging. Do you know if one can add a follow up reminder to a message flag?
Again, thank you for all your outstanding work on the new Y! Mail. I know I speak for everyone when I say it’s greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
Sam
December 7th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
Sam, I’m not sure about the “find related messages” feature. Certainly we won’t have it in the immediate future. But really it’s up to the product managers to decide what they’re going to add and I don’t get to talk with them on a daily basis (I’m just the XML monkey behind the scenes).
The followup reminder would be cool. Like if you could associate a message flag with a task or an event in Yahoo! Calendar. I’ll forward your comments on to one of our product managers.
December 7th, 2005 at 2:01 pm
Thanks for your prompt reply Ryan. The follow up reminder is a great feature. I think it would definitely serve to further distinguish Y! Mail from the other web based email providers. How cool would it be if it was also mapped to Y! Alerts so users could also be reminded via IM, mobile web, and/or SMS.
Personally, I think the “Find related messages” feature would allow Yahoo! to compete directly with Google’s conversations. After all, that’s Google’s main point of differentiation from all other email clients. Of course, this method would give users the option of viewing mail traditionally or in the context of a conversation (something Walter S. Mossberg appropriately criticized Google of not doing).
Thank you!
Sam
December 7th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
Yeah, I definitely think it’s in our best interest to make it easier for people to read their mail. Seriously, with a 1-2GB mailbox you need some fresh ideas if you’re going to be expected to find what you want in your mailbox.
I think it’s a missed opportunity not to reevaluate the ways in which we allow users to slice and dice their mailbox.
December 9th, 2005 at 5:49 am
Hi Ryan,
Just got added to Y! Mail beta today and one of the first things I noticed was that the All RSS Feeds link (as shown in the beta tutorial) in the folder list was missing. I have also filled the feedback form to notify the team. Hope you guys can fix it soon….
Thanks,
Kaushal.
January 2nd, 2007 at 8:24 am
Yahoo mail, IE (html) paste into word locks up!
I am experiencing consistant problems with Yahoo mail when pasting into word. More particularly html code into word. This function was running by pasting with control v from ie 6 for a long time, now word freezes.
Through research I found many people have the same issue. We can perform a work around with Paste Special, then select rtf format. When I perform a past into WordPAD, it performs flawlessly. The problem is that word tries to access the source of the html code as part of the paste function.
I have reloaded Word, repaired, disabled firewall, removed firewall, reinstalled and checked for patches, turned off smart paste in word, changed the view to normal/webview. Reinstalled again, removed all registry references to word, checked for viruses, spam, malware, etc… All of these actions did not change ie paste to word lockup problem.
January 2nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
Is that a problem with Yahoo! Mail or with Word? What happens when you copy and paste HTML from another web site?
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I have the same problem copy-paste to word from Yahoo! Mail. Is it IE? I know three others in my office having the sane issue recently.