Yahoo! Mail Blog
The latest scoop on Yahoo! Mail product updates, new releases, bug fixes,

Many of you have probably noticed that all around the Yahoo! network you are being greeted a little differently than you were before.  Gone is the Yahoo! ID (often shortened for space constraints) and it has been replaced with your first name.

It doesn’t stop there, because it is also home to a new menu that provides access to your Profile, Contacts, Applications, and Edit My Account options.

Sure the Contacts one isn’t that revolutionary if you are in your Mail account, but it will likely come in handy if you are out exploring another area of the Y! network.

All you need to do is mouse-over the area where your name is displayed (along with the arrow symbol) and the menu is revealed.

Just about everyone using Yahoo! Mail (Classic or the newer version) should already be seeing it there, as well as on your profiles pages, throughout  Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! News, and more.  Be sure to keep your eyes peeled.

I wouldn’t dare try to keep you from your friends, family, and food today.  Just be careful not to end up losing control and bursting that stomach!

We’ve received reports from some users that they are experiencing problems getting their inbox to load completely in the All-New Yahoo! Mail. Our engineers have been sleuthing around and discovered that if you are running Firefox 2.0.0.18, and have the RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin 1.0 installed as a browser add-on, you may run into this too.

Without getting too deep into the nitty-gritty, it seems that the plugin is preventing certain requests from reaching their intended destination within the browser. Fortunately there are two easy ways to resolve the problem.

1. Go to Tools > Add-ons, find RealPlayer plugin, Disable or Uninstall, restart Firefox.
2. Upgrade to Firefox 3.

Either of those options will do the trick.

Hopefully you saw that the Calendar team already restored the ability for users to switch back from the beta, but I wanted to make sure the team isn’t stopping there.  The team recently released an update that addresses the most frequently reported issues and tunes up performance (think timezone problems and import URL specs…among other things).

They’re also already hard at work on the next batch of features, including the top-rated requests from users via the Yahoo Calendar Suggestion Board. So be sure to weigh in if you want to get your feature on the roadmap.

Despite my earlier efforts to share these visionary suggestions with screenshots, it seems that people continue to rely heavily on search engines to get to their Yahoo! Mail account. Now if you simply like that process, more power to you. But if you would like something with fewer steps, do I have the video for you. Please excuse the stuffiness of the voice over. Not only was my voice born for print media, I was fighting off some seasonal allergies.

We’ve learned that some users may be intermittently encountering errors, or delays, when attempting to attach or download files within Yahoo! Mail.

Our engineers are reviewing the situation, but in the meantime I wanted to confirm with you that we are aware and are on the case.  You should also know that in many cases users have been successful (attaching or downloading) after repeating the initial attempt.

We apologize for any inconvenience this is causing.

***UPDATE - 11/14/08***
Some adjustments have been made, and it appears that the issues should be just about completely resolved.   The engineers made some additional tweaks that are expected to further aid the situation.  We’ll be monitoring closely over the weekend and I should have more detail on Monday.

***UPDATE - 11/20/08***
I’ve confirmed that many users have had their issues completely resolved, but it appears that some of you are still encountering delays.  I am following up with the engineering team to get additional information.

Just a quick bit of news before the weekend.  While I may write this blog with our US audience in mind, I know that some of you out there are reading my words from places far beyond my local shores.  That is why I wanted to make absolutely sure that any of you reading from the UK are aware of the maintenance scheduled for this weekend.

Starting on Friday evening (November 7th) and continuing throughout the night, we are going to be undertaking extensive but essential work to our mail servers which means that some of you may not be able to access your archived mail folders or your mail overnight.

Please be sure to head over to our sibling blog for more information, and for status updates. And for the others reading … you can rest assured that I will do my best to get back to caring just about America as soon as I can.

In reading some of the recent comments on this blog, I’ve noticed that some folks have the impression that some of the recent changes going on around the network (updated profiles for example) are happening for no reason.  So I thought I would take a moment to give a refresher on the big picture.

You may remember back in January I posted about Jerry’s presentation during CES.  In it he spoke about a more open and social experience for Yahoo! users.  He also showed off the concept for Yahoo! Mail incorporating applications that leverage some of the social connections you have with others on the network.

Over the last few weeks there were two major developments that represent big steps in that direction.  First we have the changes to profiles.  More recently, Jay Rossiter (SVP who is helming the whole “open” thing) announced on Yodel that the doors for developers have officially opened.  Here’s a chunk of what he had to say about the plan.

Most obvious will be the social aspects. At a high level, we’re rolling out a social platform that will draw on the hundreds of millions of connections on Yahoo! – everything from random encounters with someone who commented on the same photo as you, to deep connections you have with friends who know nearly everything about you. By using the social contacts you already have on Yahoo! — through Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Finance, Fantasy Sports, etc. — we’ll make those social connections more active and useful. Most importantly, by enabling developers to make your social connections specific to the Yahoo! service you’re using, we believe you’ll enjoy some incredibly unique and creative new experiences that we would never have thought of.

Some developers were able to get a head start on this by participating in the Yahoo! Open Hack Day in September.  Developers spent much of the event working on applications that would benefit Mail users, but the concept spreads across the network.  Xoopit managed to pull down the best overall award with an application for Mail that gave users the ability to easily browse within Mail for media files that are attached to messages.

I know that this won’t answer all questions people have, but hopefully it’s reassuring to see what some of the stuff is building toward.  You can even take a gander at the Mail related section of Jerry’s video for a refresher.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with Mail, but it’s too important not to mention.  Today is election day, so if you have already done so…THANK-YOU.

If you haven’t, there’s still plenty of time to head over to your local polling location.  If you don’t know where that is, you can check the special Yahoo! Election ‘08 page for details.

A quick peek at the Yahoo! homepage will also reveal a special election day logo that asks about your voting activity.  It doesn’t ask you to declare what you voted for, just that you voted.

If you click on the NO button you will be directed to the same Yahoo! Election ‘08 page referenced above, but a YES gets you a wonderful affirmation of your contribution.

So make sure you earn yourself an updated Yahoo! Header!

You didn’t think I would let Halloween pass without showing off some of our favorite costumed Liams did you?  My favorite is Rappin’ Liam, but since Dracula is a more famous character I thought I would give Count Liam the top position.

Hope all of you out there have a happy and safe Halloween!