Yahoo! Revamps Yahoo Mail But Fails To Make It Better Than Gmail, Outlook

There is no doubt about the fact that Yahoo! is a highly popular site, one which gets 700 million visitors per month. Lately, however, it has been in the news because of the appointment of a new CEO, Marissa Mayer, and her vision to transform Yahoo and to get it back on the competitive stage with Facebook and Google. In order to do this,  Mayer decided to focus on a coherent mobile strategy and directed her employees to work on efficient Yahoo mobile products. The company also got into a long term partnership with Media.net to provide contextual ads on the Yahoo! Bing network.

Taking this revamping and re-aligning strategy forward, Yahoo has officially introduced a new, cleaner, faster Yahoo Mail for web as well as iOS, Android, Windows 8 devices.

While half the world stopped using Yahoo Mail decades ago, the few who stayed loyal to the email service are going to be delighted about the changes. I must confess I opened my age-old Yahoo Mail account to figure out what was new, only to realize how the ‘old’ Gmail makes the ‘new‘ Yahoo Mail look like an awkward, me-too, wannabe, yet-to-get-there younger sibling.

Without being any more judgmental, here’s the review:

• The look is clean, no doubt. The left panel in your inbox is where all the usual folders – inbox, sent, drafts, spam, etc. are lined up
• Using the ‘folders’ option you can compartmentalise your emails. The bad thing is that once you moved an email into a folder, it no longer shows in your inbox

• The top bar has the regular inbox, contacts, calendar options and the ‘what’s new’ section will keep you abreast with latest news and trending articles/people
• The inbox is neat and the bar that includes the compose message, delete, reply, forward etc. options looks strikingly similar to the one that appears in Gmail. This strategically placed options facility ensures quick action and helps save time, though.

• The compose message service is simple and hassle-free. I like the wide-range of formatting options that are available. However, after you send an email you are not taken back to the inbox; instead you have to manually do so. While inbox is simply a click away, collectively, over a period of a week or a month, precious time will be wasted heading back to the inbox after an email is sent.
• The one thing I absolutely disliked is the presence of ads in the inbox. These are very distracting and obstruct the task at hand.

I don’t see anything never-seen-before or revolutionary about the new Yahoo Mail. It is pretty standard and has features that Gmail and Outlook have had for a while. While it surely didn’t impress me, let me know what you make of the new Yahoo Mail.

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Image Courtesy |  teck.in

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