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).

NoSo - Backlash Against Our “Always On” Culture

“Meet no friends, attend no events and make no connections.”

NoSo, short for No Social, is more of an art project and cultural backlash than an actual startup. You join, get a user number (everything is anonymous) and then create and/or join “NoSo’s,” which are held wherever the organizer chooses to have it: parks, cafes, street corners and other public places.

Other users come, but people “meet without meeting.” Users arrive alone, unplugged and aren’t allowed talk to anyone, presumably taking comfort in the fact that other NoSo users are there sharing their experience. “Allow the NoSo experience to envelope you,” the site suggests. The video on the home page of the site describes the other details. A sample event is here.

It’s an obvious play on Flash Mobs, although, of course, without publicity.

This also appears to be a semi-serious endeavor.. The NoSo founders (Artists Christina Ray and Kurt Bigenho) were interviewed by 10ZenMonkeys:

We invite people to take a break from their every day experiences carrying around laptops and cellphones, and give them the chance to just disengage from the noise, the social network, the constant communication that’s going on around us all the time. We let them just experience the absence of that — the feeling of being without all those distractions. And a NoSo could happen in a number of different places. It could happen on a street corner, or in a cafe, or in an installation in a gallery setting.

ContraStream To Join Social Music Sites

If you are into the social music scene, bookmark ContraStream, a new music discovery engine, and go back to it on September 3 when they launch.

The site promises to help users find good music quickly. Artists upload indie music and others vote on it Digg-fashion to push the good stuff to the top of the site. It is at least somewhat similar to iJigg, which also lets users vote, Digg-like, on music.

ContraStream will leverage the user-generated voting data to create let users search/browse popular music. Each artist and album also gets its own dedicated page on the site.

In an effort to “keep the music indie,” users are encouraged to flag music that is “too mainstream.”

See more at Scopetech.

Digg Gets A Major Makeover

Changes to the Digg template and feature set discussed by Kevin Rose August 22 are now live.

The biggest change with the new look Digg is the inclusion of video on the front page. Other changes include tweaks to page and story summary layouts, streamlined navigation, and more customization options.

Stories are now able to be buried in one click as opposed to the previous two click procedure. Story submission has also been streamlined.

First impressions: I’m not sure yet. Drop down menus have replaced the previous tree style content directory at the top of the page, and the overall look feels a little more feminine; the strong colors used in the old Digg template have been replaced by lighter, nearly pastel colors at places. The inclusion of videos on the front page seemingly interrupts the flow of Digg stories as you scroll down the page.

Digg’s Daniel Burka writes that the changes have been made following consultation with Digg users, so perhaps the new look will be well received and I’m being a little bit too picky. Comments on a number of Digg threads covering the changes seem to be running at around 50/50 for and against.

Update: a tip from Aidan Henry via Skype: the story pages have more advertising, with the previous Leaderboard now having a 300×250 rectangle ad below right of it above the fold. Both spots were showing animated ads when I was viewing them, which suffice to say is rather annoying from a user perspective.

Digg Gets A Major Makeover

Changes to the Digg template and feature set discussed by Kevin Rose August 22 are now live.

The biggest change with the new look Digg is the inclusion of video on the front page. Other changes include tweaks to page and story summary layouts, streamlined navigation, and more customization options.

Stories are now able to be buried in one click as opposed to the previous two click procedure. Story submission has also been streamlined.

First impressions: I’m not sure yet. Drop down menus have replaced the previous tree style content directory at the top of the page, and the overall look feels a little more feminine; the strong colors used in the old Digg template have been replaced by lighter, nearly pastel colors at places. The inclusion of videos on the front page seemingly interrupts the flow of Digg stories as you scroll down the page.

Digg’s Daniel Burka writes that the changes have been made following consultation with Digg users, so perhaps the new look will be well received and I’m being a little bit too picky. Comments on a number of Digg threads covering the changes seem to be running at around 50/50 for and against.

Update: a tip from Aidan Henry via Skype: the story pages have more advertising, with the previous Leaderboard now having a 300×250 rectangle ad below right of it above the fold. Both spots were showing animated ads when I was viewing them, which suffice to say is rather annoying from a user perspective.

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.

The Tech Industry Wants You To Support The Fight For Fair Use

Listen very carefully to the copyright statement in this clip. Thinking about discussing last weekend’s game with family and friends? The NFL clearly states that viewers cannot talk about the game to anyone without permission

Insane statements like this, and others, are the target of a FTC complaint by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a group backed by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Oracle and a range of other leading tech firms (full list here). The complaint argues that statements made by groups such as the NFL are illegal and deceptive, as ultimately viewers have rights under the US Constitution by way of Fair Use.

The CCIA isn’t stopping at a FTC complaint alone: they want your support in backing consumer rights to fair use. A new site, Defend Fair Use, has been launched and comes complete with copyright abuse examples and a petition that can be signed in support on the CCIA’s case before the FTC.

For those not familiar with the term, Fair Use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders*, or in laymen’s terms it allows anyone to use a clip, extract, or part thereof of copyrighted material in our own works, for example quoting a book in a blog post, displaying a snippet of a presidential debate in a video etc. The concept of Fair Use is based on free speech rights provided by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Commonwealth equivalent of Fair Use is Fair Dealing.

There are any number of causes floating around the tech industry. The more left wing inclined may support movements including Creative Commons; many of these movements tend to be anti-copyright. The fight for Fair Use is not one that is anti-copyright; fair use does not disown copyright nor seek to overthrow it and replace it with some sort of Utopian socialist vision of a free for all where content creators would no longer be able to own their works. Fair Use is about allowing, as the name suggests, fair use of copyrighted materials in a free and open society, be that by the press or by content creators such as bloggers and others. It’s a noble cause, if only because the alternative is absurd. Would we want to live in a society where you would need permission to discuss a football game due to copyright restrictions?

Those interested in signing the petition can do so here.

(in part via Ars)

*Wikipedia