Yahoo! Mail Beta Getting Ready to Shed Beta Tag

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 24 May 2011

Yahoo! Mail Beta, the next version of Yahoo!'s webmail client, is getting ready to shed its Beta tag, Yahoo! representatives announced. And more to the point, Senior Director of Product Management with Yahoo! Mail, David McDowell, announced that Yahoo! Mail Beta will shed its Beta tag “in the coming weeks” and will be released to the 284 million Yahoo! Mail users spread all over the world.

As a little side note, it must be said that this isn’t the first time that Yahoo! announces that Yahoo! Mail Beta will graduate out of Beta. Back in April, Senior Product Manager with Yahoo! Mail, Stephanie Shum, announced that “we’re almost ready to take off the Beta label”. In fairness to Yahoo!, Shum did not mention when Yahoo! Mail would graduate out of Beta. McDowell did mention when, even though it is a vague reference.

Putting the spotlight on Yahoo! Mail Beta, one question immediately comes to mind: what does it have to offer? The brief answer goes like this: Yahoo! Mail Beta comes with a cleaner, sleeker user interface, it is faster than ever before, and it offers better spam protection than ever before.

To get an even better idea of what you can expect to get from Yahoo! Mail Beta (soon to graduate out of Beta), here’s a quick features list:

Speed
Yahoo! Mail Beta is two-times faster than previous Yahoo! Mail versions. That’s because it uses Yahoo!’s cloud technology to provide fast browsing speeds.

Spam protection
Spam is cut down by about 60% because Yahoo! Mail Beta uses advanced SpamGuard technology and a new anti-phishing platform.

Social features
You can reply to messages from Facebook, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Mail and other webmail providers by using the new easy reply bar.
You can view and share updates/notifications from Twitter, Facebook and Zynga from the new Updates tab.
You can view photo slideshows, inline videos and more from within the inbox.
You can chat with Facebook friends, Windows Live, and Yahoo! Messenger friends from within Yahoo! Mail Beta. You can view past IM and text conversations within Yahoo! Mail.

Search and sort
You can search within your emails and narrow said search based by sender, attachment file, date, or folder location. Furthermore, Yahoo! Mail Beta comes with a new feature that prioritizes messages and contacts that matter most; frequent contacts and lists surface first when composing an IM, SMS or email.

Themes and stationery

There are more than 50 themes and stationery options to go through and use to decorate your inbox.

Apps
There are several apps at your disposal.

To learn more about Yahoo! Mail Beta, or perhaps upgrade your existing account, just click here.


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