Yahoo Mail hopes to lure users with 'ymail.com'

Yahoo Mail, the top provider of Web-based e-mail, is letting users sign up with the ymail.com and rocketmail.com domains in an attempt to attract new users and keep existing ones loyal.

The move is geared to help people find a better e-mail address, said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail. "We want users to get the exact e-mail account they want so they stay with us for life," he said.

Because "[e-mail]" is likely taken by now, a lot of people must resort to unpleasant and hard-to-remember addresses such as "[e-mail]." Yahoo wants to give people a new chance with a name they like.

Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)

The rocketmail name dates back to Yahoo's $92 million acquisition in 1997 of Four11, a company that offered the free RocketMail service.

"It's a great brand," Kremer said. "Those who have no memory of our service in the late 1990s indicated they like it, and those who indicated they want to be retro like it for the fact that it's associated with Yahoo.com since the beginning."

Maybe it's retro for Yahoo, too, which is under fire from shareholders after a bruising takeover attempt by Microsoft. Probably plenty of employees enjoy thinking nostalgically about the company's dot-com glory days. But the company is trying to move forward, too, with Mail one major part of the company's Yahoo Open Strategy (YOS) strategy.

Open mail
Through YOS, Yahoo is trying to make its online services a foundation for third-party applications. For mail, that means letting other applications appear on the Mail "canvas," Kremer said.

In this area, Kremer said, Yahoo was inspired by technology the Yahoo got through its acquisition of online e-mail specialist Zimbra in 2007.

"Zimbra was a pioneer in opening up Web services within the Zimbra application. They have open applications within their space that are used all over the place," he said.

There are now "no walls" between Yahoo Mail and Zimbra engineers, he added, though the business units are separate. "They share a lot of what they do. You'll see in very short order products on our site built on their technology, and vice versa," Kremer said.

The Internet company revamped its Yahoo Mail interface beginning three years ago, calling the update the "all-new Yahoo Mail" for well over a year now. The new interface is based on technology from Yahoo's 2004 acquisition of Oddpost.com.

The "all-new" badge will be removed "pretty soon," Kremer added.

Rolling Thunder
Yahoo plans a "rolling thunder of announcements" around Yahoo Mail in the next six to eight months, he added. Some significant changes will include as a "smarter inbox," work to make Yahoo Mail fit better in today's world of social networking, and the opening of the mail platform, he added.

It's a good thing, because there are plenty of competitors--not just traditional Web mail outfits such as Microsoft Hotmail, AOL, and up-and-coming Google Gmail, but also social sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Yahoo considers the full spectrum of competition, though.

"What we believe here at Yahoo is all communication is eventually coming together," Kremer said. "You don't need to bounce out to a separate social communications site or a different social event site when most of those tools are really just communications. If it's built on the same address book and calendar information, you can see them coming together in a single, more productive, smarter inbox."

[rathofbuns]

Where are they letting users sign up for it? I tried to sign up for a new Yahoo Mail account and it only have me the standard @yahoo.com option.

[alerma]

According to this article, Yahoo! will begin rolling out these new email services on Thursday, June 18 at around 4pm. This article is from Canada so I'm not sure of the exact time it will roll out in the US, but I am guessing somewhere around the same time.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080618.wryahoo19/BNStory/Technology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080618.wryahoo19

[technotraits]

Yahoo will roll out this feature on Thursday 19 June at 12 noon Pacific Time.
See this
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080619/ap_on_hi_te/tec_yahoo_mail

[ranpha]

If only Yahoo! allows custom domains for e-mail the way Google and Microsoft are doing, it would be great.

[Dinsh_123]

Competiting Google in the field of search engines, overtaken by Microsoft on the social networks, Yahoo keeps at least one area of satisfaction: the mailbox. According to the latest rankings comScore, the group Jerry Yang remains in effect leader in this segment with 266 million unique visitors last April for its Yahoo Mail service against 263 million for Microsoft and 101 million for Google.

http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?p=3810734&posted=1#post3810734

[Dinsh_123]

Competiting Google in the field of search engines, overtaken by Microsoft on the social networks, Yahoo keeps at least one area of satisfaction: the mailbox. According to the latest rankings comScore, the group Jerry Yang remains in effect leader in this segment with 266 million unique visitors last April for its Yahoo Mail service against 263 million for Microsoft and 101 million for Google.

http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?p=3810734&posted=1#post3810734

[Xiibo]

All I really want is IMAP capabilities for free. I'm tired of having to always use a web browser to check my yahoo mail. I don't want to use POP... I like having old emails available when I'm on a different computer. Yahoo is really lacking by not offering IMAP at all, even for Plus mail.

[JoeF2]

They need to de-clutter their Webmail UI.
When I want to check email, I want to check email, and I don't want to be bombarded with a frigging news page. In their new UI, that can't even be switched off, that's why I reverted back to the "classic" UI.

[jodpur]

I think it's a good move, but why don't companies use warmer names. What about [e-mail] or [e-mail]?

[KTWinATL]

I remember rocketmail.com. I still use my rocketmail.com account for my e-mail. I loved rocketmail.com when it first came ou.

[josmor]

Google and Microsoft are one step forward. They offer their email platform with custom domains.
In www.smb-email.com they help small organizations to setup their domains and email.

[lordvrolok]

I am and have been doing that already with yahoo.. very slick.

[japerabbit]

Rocketmail was good, but too much to type just the same reason why hotmail.com doesn't do as well as Yahoo mail. Yahoo is on the right track with Ymail and needs to rememeber time not spent doing tedious tasks like constantly typing ones long email addie can keep lazy people from using the service. @YM.com or @YeM .com sounds better and doesn't sound llike you're on Google's Gmail band wagon.

[japerabbit]

Rocketmail was good, but too much to type just the same reason why hotmail.com doesn't do as well as Yahoo mail. Yahoo is on the right track with Ymail and needs to rememeber time not spent doing tedious tasks like constantly typing ones long email addie can keep lazy people from using the service. @YM.com or @YeM .com sounds better and doesn't sound llike you're on Google's Gmail band wagon.

[Blade2173]

This is an incredibly poorly written article. It didn't include when the feature was to be available, nor did it define the available .com names. The title says ymail, then paragraph four pulls "rocketmail" out of nowhere, like I'm supposed to know what it means. Stephen Shankland writes like hes in high school.

[hyperwill]

no up yet..

[swrobel]

What I want to know is what e-mail Yahoo employees use...

[benjamin straight]

I can't find ymail.

[RadioLeg]

In general I love Yahoo Mail. BUT, 2 big problems I have with them which is making me want to switch is: lack of IMAP, and their inability to complete their transition to the new Ajax based UI across all the additional areas of the Mail product. Notably, their calendar is terrible compared to the slickness of GMail's offering; add GMail's calendar sync and calendar subscription into the mix and Yahoo Mail is quickly losing all the "power users". The only thing that keeps me around is that everyone has my email address, but that won't keep me around for long... -r

[DoloresMay]

I'm feeling like an idiot......I don't want to make a comment....I'm trying to register for a ymail account.