Yahoo Mail Gets a Facelift

Yahoo has taken the wraps off a revamped version of its Yahoo Mail service. Some observers say the redesign is one of the most important moves new CEO Marissa Mayer has made during her time at the company.

On the Yahoo blog, Mayer announced, “You’ve told us loud and clear that you want fewer distractions when it comes to email. You want to quickly login, communicate, and get on with your day. And we’ve listened. Starting today, the new Yahoo! Mail is fast, easy and available anywhere you go. These improvements will be available on all major platforms: Web, Windows 8, iPhone/iPod touch and Android.”

GigaOm’s Ryan Kim summarized the changes with a series of bullet points:

• “The inbox is better designed for triage, so users can file away, delete or act on emails faster. There’s infinite scrolling so the inbox is quicker to scan.
• Logging in brings you directly into the inbox now and there are speed improvements to make it faster to compose and read email. Search is also improved to with auto-complete for web Mail and universal search across for mobile apps.
• The number of buttons have been reduced on the mobile apps while the ability to view, send and resize photos has been simplified.
• For Windows 8 users, they can see new incoming messages via Live Tiles and can keep the Mail app open along with other apps using Snapped View or Fill View.”

CNET’s Roger Cheng noted, “Regardless of Yahoo’s broader struggles, its e-mail service remains a popular one and a default address for many individuals. As a result, it continues to be a crucial element to sustaining traffic.”

TechCrunch’s Drew Olanoff observed, “Coming from Google, Mayer knows the importance of having a solid Email product, a service that is probably the original social network and something that most people in the world use daily. This appears to be the first significant redesign for Yahoo Mail since 2011, which was introduced as a Beta in 2010.”