November 16th, 2004
Yahoo! Mail Gets Spazzier
According to Brad Garlinghouse (VP, Communications Products) on Yahoo! Search Blog yesterday, Yahoo! Mail now has three new features:
- Better Search
- DomainKeys Implementation
- DHTML
Nothing too surprising or exciting in search features since it was expected after Gmail‘s search within their mail interface. Yahoo! merely seems to equal their feature list for now; only Gmail’s interface remains faster.
DomainKeys however is a surprising move. Keeping in mind Microsoft’s SenderID implementation for the MSN sites (Wasn’t it supposed to get activated on October 1?), and their recent IP-related problems, it does make sense for Yahoo! to be aggressive about pushing it across as the next viable solution. They even have an opensource reference implementation on Sourceforge. The complete site for DomainKeys makes for an interesting read, though I doubt it will become a standard any time soon. Not even with Yahoo!’s claim that big-time providers like EarthLink are joining hands with them in the implementation. As of now, Yahoo! Mail will sign all outbound messages and verify inbound messages as well.
The DHTML isn’t surprising either. For now they’ve implemented the autocomplete through it which is something they managed to do through a standalone windows application before. Now they’re at par with Gmail for having done it through DHTML. This is the Oddpost technology at work guys! When Yahoo! had taken over the company (News.com, Slashdot, Oddpost), many-a-eyebrows had risen and mused on what it meant for Yahoo! Mail. Now the water is finally distilled and has started flowing out the Yahoo! Mail tap. 
I look forward to the other enhancements that should in the pipeline too.
But then, Gmail recently announced free POP access and that is something Yahoo! Mail is charging a neat sum for. Once upon a time, Yahoo! had POP access under the condition that users accept advertising from select partners. It remains to be seen how Yahoo! will counter Gmail for this, if at all.