Yahoo Mail Out of Beta; New Features

The new Yahoo Mail interface went into public beta in September 2006, although Yahoo was testing it long before that. Tonight Yahoo takes the “beta” label off of the product and makes it the default interface for all new Yahoo mail accounts.

Yahoo mail already has an integrated RSS reader and instant messaging. They also recently announced unlimited storage for all mail users.

They are also releasing a few new features.

Shortcuts: Mail now has a number of intelligent shortcuts. Things like addresses, places, dates, contact information, etc. are underlined with blue dots. Click on the link and see a mashup with maps (for addresses), travel guides (for places), calendar (for dates), etc. New services are being added regularly.

SMS/Text Messaging: Yahoo wants you to use their mail application whenever you contact your friends, however you contact them. In addition to emailing or instant messaging clients, you can now send them a text message from the mail interface. Their responses also come in directly to Yahoo Mail. It currently works for U.S., India, Philippines and Canadian mobile numbers.

Is Yahoo Mail a better webmail application than GMail? In our comparisons GMail always comes out on top, although the main reason is tagging of messages and the fact that GMail gives free forwarding and POP access to the account. Yahoo still charges $20/year for forwarding or POP access. For users who still like their desktop mail clients, POP access is an important feature. Yahoo says they are considering making it a free option, but they have a lot of paying mail customers. If they make too many features free, they jeopardize that revenue stream. Offering unlimited free storage really pushed the limits, so I don’t expect them to move more features from paid to free any time soon.

The new interface is the final realization of Yahoo’s 2004 acquisition of Ajax pioneer Oddpost. The new mail product is based largely on ideas first launched by Oddpost in 2002.

Startups aren’t just sitting around as the big guys upgrade their webmail apps, though. Our favorite product in this space is Orgoo, which launches this fall and lets users pull in mail and IM accounts from any number of providers. Foldera is another promising product in this space (I was previously on their board of directors, but I do not own any stock in the company).

Adobe Hires Co-Inventor of Image Resizer Technology

The day before yesterday I showed the above video (it has now been viewed nearly 100,000 times), which shows some jaw dropping examples of next generation image manipulation, and said “I want this in PhotoShop immediately.” Well, that may be happening sooner rather than later. Co-inventor Shai Avidan has now joined Adobe and will work out of their Newtown, MA office. More info on Shai is here.

VideoEgg And Lots Of Others Call B.S. On YouTube

VideoEgg’s overlay advertising system has been in the market for a year and is driving “significant” revenue for the company. it’s so successful, in fact, that they recently launched a Facebook advertising network based on the same technology.

The idea is to use a Flash overlay advertisement with some basic information and graphics that takes up a small part of the viewable video area. Users click the ad and get a more in depth video ad. It’s less intrusive than a pre or post roll ad, and has far better performance than ads placed around a video. It’s likely to become the standard way ads are placed on video, even potentially on normal television as the thirty second ad spot continues to decline.

Given VideoEgg’s success with the unit it’s no surprise that YouTube has adopted the same format with their advertising. But it is surprising that YouTube failed to give even a passing mention to the company that invented the unit. VideoEgg also claims to have a patent application on this - something YouTube will certainly have to deal with down the road.

Nick Carr points out that much of the early press on YouTube was written by people who failed to do their homework. Carr trashes a CNET article that he says was basically an ad for YouTube. CNET subsequently changed the title of their article but there is still no mention of VideoEgg’s invention of the unit

Meanwhile, VideoEgg seems to be handling the situation well and taking advantage of the publicity. They added the graphic above to their home page, and are talking to press about their product. Suddenly, everyone is interested.

VideoEgg And Lots Of Others Call B.S. On YouTube

VideoEgg’s overlay advertising system has been in the market for a year and is driving “significant” revenue for the company. it’s so successful, in fact, that they recently launched a Facebook advertising network based on the same technology.

The idea is to use a Flash overlay advertisement with some basic information and graphics that takes up a small part of the viewable video area. Users click the ad and get a more in depth video ad. It’s less intrusive than a pre or post roll ad, and has far better performance than ads placed around a video. It’s likely to become the standard way ads are placed on video, even potentially on normal television as the thirty second ad spot continues to decline.

Given VideoEgg’s success with the unit it’s no surprise that YouTube has adopted the same format with their advertising. But it is surprising that YouTube failed to give even a passing mention to the company that invented the unit. VideoEgg also claims to have a patent application on this - something YouTube will certainly have to deal with down the road.

Nick Carr points out that much of the early press on YouTube was written by people who failed to do their homework. Carr trashes a CNET article that he says was basically an ad for YouTube. CNET subsequently changed the title of their article but there is still no mention of VideoEgg’s invention of the unit

Meanwhile, VideoEgg seems to be handling the situation well and taking advantage of the publicity. They added the graphic above to their home page, and are talking to press about their product. Suddenly, everyone is interested.

http://www.techcrunch.com/

The King Is Long Gone But His Brand Has A Life of Its Own

By Melinda Newman Thursday marks the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, but in many ways the keepers of his estate are only starting to take care of business.
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9th body found at Minnesota bridge site

By MARTIGA LOHN, AP Writer 5 minutes ago MINNEAPOLIS - Divers found another body in the Mississippi River on Sunday, 11 days after a highway bridge collapsed into the fast-flowing water, raising the official death toll to nine.
Grueling search at bridge collapse site San Jose Mercury News
Ma, tot bridge victims laid to rest New York Daily News
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Raising the Cone of Silence

The editorial "'Get Smart' in Washington" (Aug. 3) does not discuss the fact that the administration's proposal to gut the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) isn't about listening to foreign-to-foreign calls; it's about undercutting ...
Can he hear you now? Yes East Valley Tribune
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Buying tips Refrigerators

the refrigerators in the market cost between Rs.4,990-1,35,000. You first need to decide on the capacity of the fridge.

To give you a rough idea a family of 2 members would require about 50-200 litres. Add 20 litres for every additional member. However, remember that the food habits as well as the shopping habits also affect this calculation. Non-vegetarians would require a higher capacity refrigerator. If you are the kind of person who would rather shop for the entire week at a time, you should go in for a refrigerator with a larger capacity.

Although the gross capacity is the basis on which most refrigerator models in India are sold, the net capacity would give the consumer a correct estimation of the actual usable capacity of the refrigerator. Gross capacity is the total capacity of the refrigerator and not an indicator of the actual capacity, and as a thumb rule, you could reduce 8% to 10% from the gross capacity to get an idea of the actual capacity of the refrigerator.

Frost-free refrigerators have given way to defrosting since they have an in-built thermostat, heater and timer that activates the defrost cycle every 2 hours. Frost-free refrigerators make the messy chore of defrosting a fading memory. These models are priced upwards of Rs.10,000.

There are also models that have an a utomatic defrosting option which defrost the fresh-food compartment automatically, but the freezer still has to be defrosted manually. Models such as this are priced at Rs. 6,500 onwards.