IM Watch: Yahoo Makes IM-to-Cell Connection

Web-based IM
Yahoo is expected to announce new features for its Web-based e-mail service, including new updates that will let Yahoo mail users send instant messages or text messages to cell phones, according to industry reports. The new features are expected to be first released for users in the United States, Canada, India and also the Philippines. To use text messaging within your Yahoo e-mail account, you simply need to add the cell phone information for a person in your contact list.

Last week was a big week for new social network-based IM applications. Vancouver-based Atrexis Systems released SocialBox, a Facebook instant messaging application that lets you log in and simultaneously use Facebook IM, MSN, GTalk, ICQ, AIM and Yahoo messaging services. Atrexis Systems said there will also be future releases for MySpace and other social networking sites, and that future SocialBox updates will include options to enable video and audio chat, user blocking, file sharing and more.

Social networking site Bebo says it plans to launch a Microsoft-powered IM program in the fall, the starting point of a new plan to enable other sites to incorporate Windows Live Web services. The Bebo IM will have limited compatibility with Microsoft's own services and will let Bebo members click a link to start an IM session with any other Bebo member, even without a Windows Live ID. Bebo users will be able to send messages to Windows Live Messenger users only if they also have a Bebo account.

The partnership is designed to help Bebo grow its network by tapping the Windows Live Messenger user base. The arrangement also includes the use of the Windows Live Contacts API so users can freely import and export their contacts and relationships between the services, ultimately giving users the choice where and how they wish to use their social network.

Lastly, other IM and social network partnerships announced this week include news from eBuddy, a provider of Web and mobile instant messaging, who who says that MySpace IM has been added top its list of supported IM networks. MySpace IM users can now use eBuddy to chat with their friends without having to download and install any application. Also, Apple users can now access MySpace IM through this Web-based service, as there currently is no MySpace IM application support for the Apple operating system. eBuddy also supports AOL, GoogleTalk, MSN and Yahoo.

Clients & Platforms
IBM is hoping to further its unified communication and collaboration strategy by expanding its IBM Lotus Sametime software to include new telephony integration software. Lotus Sametime "Unified Telephony" software is designed to make it possible to manage communications across multiple business telephone systems and access them through virtually any application. With the Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony product, IBM says you will be able to manage incoming calls, see similar presence status updates for telephony as they do for IM presence (e.g., away, on the phone, in meeting), and also connect faster with colleagues and with a variety of back-end and legacy systems.

Mobile IM
Meebo launched its Web-based IM client for the iPhone. iPhone users can simply browse to Meebo.com and will automatically be directed to the iPhone-formatted site. On the iPhone version, a "smart buddy" list moves your active conversations to the top of the buddy list to enable message previews, and also alphabetizes your buddies, making them easier to find.

Verizon Wireless says its customers can now access AOL, Yahoo! or MSN instant messaging accounts from their wireless phones with Mobile IM. You can send and receive IM and see who is available, busy or offline from their contacts list, all on their mobile phones. The Mobile IM service is pre-loaded on most Verizon Wireless devices and can also be found in the new Messaging menu under Mobile IM on the Verizon Web site. Mobile IM is available on a monthly or per message subscription basis.

IM Security Highlights
Symantec announced its latest version of Symantec Information Foundation 2007, a security product that's designed to provide the controls to safeguard companies against data loss with unified protection for e-mail, Web and instant messaging. Symantec Information Foundation 2007 includes several new features to help control data in organizations, including identification, classification and control of sensitive corporate data held in databases, e-mails, IM and file systems. Controls to review, hold, release and audit of e-mail, IM and Web communications for policy compliance, and also beta support for filtering outgoing Web communications to prevent accidental or intentional data loss through Web mail sites such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail .

Postini announced its new Message Discovery service optimizes mailbox storage management, e-discovery and litigation case management. Postini says it make archiving services available in three packages: Basic, Standard and Professional and can capture both e-mail and IM traffic. The new Postini Message Discovery is an optional add-on service that will let companies better manage multiple internal and external inquiries, making it easy for any authorized party to discover messages as part of an investigation. Relevant messages then can be save and exported, or put on a litigation hold ensuring that the data is preserved.

This month Yahoo has learned of two denial-of-service and buffer overflow security issues in the Web cam function. Yahoo Messenger clients downloaded before August 21, 2007, are vulnerable to these issues. If using the older version, a Yahoo Messenger client user who accept a Web cam invitation could be controlled by a malicious attacker. Yahoo has posted the details and a security update here.

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Yahoo finally launches Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0

Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0 will launch in beta for consumers in the UK and 12 other countries around the world on Friday.

The localised beta version of Yahoo Go 2.0 will be available for more than 200 different mobile phones by the end of July and that will expand to more than 400 by end of year. It will also be pre-loaded on new devices from Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG and HTC that begin rolling out later this year.

Yahoo says that Go for Mobile 2.0 is "an innovative new application that redefines the mobile internet experience". Go for Mobile 2.0 includes much improved mobile search and allows user to personalise internet content.

Yahoo claims that mobile internet search will be fully localised for users in around the world, including the UK, and Canada, France and Germany, as well as other European countries and great swathes of the far east.

Yahoo believes that Go for Mobile 2.0 will make mobile web search faster than ever before. Email has been improved, so mobile phone users can open more types of attachments, including PDFs and Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents.

Yahoo also says that Go for Mobile 2.0 allows user to search their Yahoo Address Book contacts to call or even get driving directions with one-click.

“We believe that Yahoo Go will be a catalyst for broader adoption of the mobile internet,” said Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Connected Life Division, of Yahoo.

“People want easy access to the internet on their mobile phones, and Yahoo Go 2.0 offers content, access and answers wherever you are.”

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Yahoo India Maps and Yahoo India Our City Beta launched by Yahoo!

Yahoo! has launched their Yahoo India Maps service in Beta version. As of now, the company will be providing street-level, satellite map and hybrid maps of over 170 cities, 4785 towns and 220,000 villages across India. For this, Yahoo is using the data supplied by CE Infosystems.
The tech giant also mentioned that their Indian Research & Development center in Bangalore will be the hub for new products which would be aimed at emerging markets such as India and Brazil.
According to George Zacharias, managing director of Yahoo India, the potential of the Indian market for online advertising is growing at a rapid pace and is expected to grow by 50 per cent every year.
Yahoo! said that they have taken special care to prevent undue exposure of sensitive defense and other installations. They also plan to make the Yahoo! India Maps service available to mobile users in India in the months to come.
What’s more, Yahoo! also announced their plans to launch Yahoo India Our City beta for 20 cities. This will be a specialized section that would feature local maps, snaps, videos and news from a number of Indian cities.

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Yahoo! Site Explorer service out of beta

Yahoo! Site Explorer service out of beta

Internet giants Yahoo! has announced that their Site Explorer service is now out of Beta. The company further announced that they have now added a couple of new features on the web service.

It now offer services including Feed Submission, Site Authentication and offer more data to the web masters.

Yahoo! Site Explorer service is now also accepting mobile sites and their feeds. This content would be included on their recently launched Yahoo OneSearch solution for mobile devices.

A company blog post said that they are accepting mobile content in following formats:

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New MyYahoo Beta Rolling Out

I've been a slacker lately -- haven't posted on the new MyYahoo beta. Give it a test drive. Prior to the beta's availability, Yahoo execs sat down with Jupiter and told us what they were trying to achieve:
- Web 2.0 freshness (more graphics, AJAX, interactivity -- esp. to attract more women and non-news-centric users)- More user control (add a 4th column, choose search providers)- Connect outward (content previews)- Sharing, also in the service of new user acquisition -- e-mail or IM this page, working with publishers to make modules more shareable
And do all this without alienating the existing users, who tend to be Yahoo's best customers in terms of time spent, applications used, paid services, etc. Jupiter analysis confirms this -- you'll be lucky to get 20% adoption of customization/personalization features, but those adopters are valuable. On the other hand, personalization scores pretty low as a content site differentiator (see Figure 6).
The other thing we've found is that resistance to customization appears to be a matter of dis-interest, rather than difficulty or privacy concerns. One thing Yahoo's doing that's cool is to make it easy to start -- they're making suggested packages of customized content for new users. But I don't think they're pitching the value -- i.e., efficiency, and "more of the info I want" -- hard enough. If I were to score them against their objectives above, I'd give them at least a B+. The beta's very slick, and quite useful.

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Yahoo Launches Beta of 'Alpha' Search

Yahoo's Australian arm launched a beta of a new search engine named "Alpha," which aims to bring together results from several different search engines. While many multi-source search sites combine the results together, Alpha would compartmentalize results into widget-like boxes. In the default set up, the main widget is Yahoo! Search, but the layout can be changed to the user's liking.
Currently in addition to Yahoo search results, widgets containing results from Flickr, YouTube, Yahoo! News, Wikipedia, and Yahoo Search Marketing are also included. A user can also add their own sources, as long as they know the base URL for search results.

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Yahoo Mail Offers 'Infinite' Storage for 10-year Anniversary

Regular readers over at PCmag.com already know that I'm a big fan of the continually updated Yahoo! Mail Beta. Well the folks at Yahoo! are planning to ratchet things up a notch in May by allowing us all to become absolute pack rats. Yes folks, they will be the first Web mail providers among the big Internet players to provide an unlimited amount of email storage. Why May? Well it's their 10-year anniversary of course.

Just to put things in perspective, back when Yahoo! Mail launched (formerly RocketMail) they offered all of 4MBs storage capacity! I've posted the whole release after the jump; it has some interesting factoids and a scary looking bloated Yahoo! Mail mascot.

Below I've posted the full release written by John Kremer over at Yahoo!

Yahoo! Mail goes to infinity and beyond

As Yahoo! Mail approaches its 10-year anniversary, I'm the lucky one who gets to announce that we will begin offering everyone unlimited email storage starting in May 2007. To mark the occasion, I checked in with David Nakayama, our group vice president of engineering, for some perspective on this milestone. In case that name doesn't ring a bell, he's the developer of RocketMail, one of the world's first webmail products, which Yahoo! acquired and relaunched as Yahoo! Mail in 1997.

Dave reminisced: "I remember getting in a room to plan our RocketMail launch over a decade ago and worrying that our original plan of a 2MB quota wasn't enough, and that we needed to be radical and DOUBLE the storage to 4MB per account! It's ironic that I routinely send and receive individual mail attachments bigger than that now. Our total capacity for mail accounts back then was 200GB for all of our customers. At Yahoo!, we're now receiving more inbound mail than that every 10 minutes."

When Yahoo! Mail launched 10 years ago, users got a whopping 4MB of storage for their entire mailbox. Today, you would fill that up with a single picture from your weekend.

This got me thinking about how the storage capacity of other popular technology products has changed. A quick snapshot:

1997: Yahoo! Mail launches with 4MB of storage

1. SanDisk introduces 2MB flash card for the Canon PowerShot.


2. Compaq announces "high capacity memory upgrades" in four capacities, including 16MB, 32MB, 64MB and 128MB capacities.


3. Caleb introduces the Ultra High Density floppy disk drive that stores up to 144MB on a single disk.


4. The first iPod is still a gleam in someone's eye. It's not introduced until 2001 and comes with 5GB of storage.

2004/2005: Yahoo! Mail upgrades in 2004 to 100MB of storage, followed by a jump to 1GB in 2005

1. Olympus upgrades to 1GB flash memory card.


2. HP announces 160GB storage upgrade for its Media Center PCs.


3. Corsair in 2005 announces a USB flash drive with 4GB of storage.


4. Apple announces the Fifth Generation iPod with 30GB capacity.

2007: Yahoo! Mail announces unlimited email storage

1. SanDisk launches 8GB flash card for photo storage.


2. Alienware introduces a desktop computer with 1 terabyte of storage.


3. Apple currently ships the newest 80GB iPod, launched in 2006 and holds up to 100 hours of video.

We're psyched to be breaking new ground in the digital storage frontier by giving our users the freedom to never worry about deleting old messages again. And, like any responsible webmail service, we have anti-abuse limits in place to protect our users. BTW: As much as we'd like to just flip a switch and "unlimit" everyone on the same day, we'll be rolling this out over a few months to facilitate a smooth transition -- we know there's virtually nothing more precious than your inbox.

We hope we're setting a precedent for the future. Someday, can you imagine a hard drive that you can never fill? Never having to empty your photo card on your camera to get space back? Enough storage to fit the world's music, and then some, on your iPod? Sounds like a future without limits.

Beats a slice of birthday cake, eh?

John Kremer Vice President, Yahoo! Mail

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Microsoft and Yahoo merge messaging services in beta

WEB HEAVYWEIGHTS that aren't Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are runnning a beta test of software that combines the firm's competing instant messaging service.

The merging of the services will create user base of some 350 million and give the pair massive lead over rivals such as Google and Skype.

Users of Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger with Voice will able to connect and chat with one another. Yahoo denied the move was a response to Google's recently-introduced Chat service.

The service will be officially launched "in the coming months", the companies said

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New Yahoo Mail beta to be unveiled

Yahoo was set to unveil on Wednesday a limited public beta of its new Yahoo Mail service, featuring a new interface more like that of a desktop e-mail application and faster response time.

As first reported in June, the new Yahoo Mail beta will feature e-mail caching; message preview; drag-and-drop filing; the capability of quickly searching e-mail headers, body text and attachments; and the ability to view multiple e-mails at the same time in separate windows and scroll through all message headers in a folder rather than one page at a time.

In addition, the new version will add address auto-complete, right-click menus and standard keyboard shortcuts.

The beta will be available to a limited group of Yahoo Mail users in the United States and will be expanded to include users worldwide in coming months, Yahoo said. Users will be able to choose the new version, stick with the older version, or switch between the two.

The amount of storage for the free service will remain 1 gigabyte.

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