Sunnyvale, California-based technology company Yahoo has released a major overhaul to the world's most-used Web-based e-mail service it operates, in a limited test of a new Yahoo Mail announced Monday that blurs the  line between traditional e-mail and social networking services. With 275 million users worldwide, the Web pioneer's latest free Yahoo Mail updates have blended in features familiar to users of online networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, such as contact lists and updates showing friend activity. The changes also included interaction with third-party applications from companies such as movie show time and review provider Flixster inside the Yahoo Mail environment, and were announced alongside several other new product upgrades as part of Yahoo's expansive so-called "Open Strategy" transformation plan. Third-Party Applications Given Greater Options Within Yahoo Mail The upgrade has given Yahoo Mail users an inbox that can be organized to give priority to e-mail sent from those contacts considered the most important, making it possible to keep family, work and friend e-mail separate,  Yahoo said Monday at a press event where some of the new features were demonstrated. The changes were not yet available to all Yahoo Mail users, as a select group of testers were the sole users to be given access Monday, with the rest of the e-mail services' users expected to begin seeing the new features over the coming months. "Today, some of you will begin to experience the smarter inbox. We are conducting a very limited beta test right now of the open applications in Yahoo Mail," Yahoo wrote in a message posted on the Yahoo Mail blog Monday. "Only our power users, who were invited into the limited beta, can test out the new applications at beta.mail.yahoo.com. We will be extending this beta test to additional users over the coming months," Yahoo noted. "We've created a smarter inbox experience to address the problem of inbox overload. We're also embedding really useful applications directly into the inbox, which should help people be even more efficient when they get to Yahoo Mail," Kremer added. The changes to Yahoo Mail were targeted at making e-mail more productive, Yahoo said. "Yahoo Mail users have told us that they want to be more productive when they get to their inbox and they want help breaking through the clutter and getting to the communications that matter most to them," Yahoo Mail vice president John Kremer said Monday in an announcement about the changes. Yahoo Also Releasing New Toolbar, Homepage Updates Among the Yahoo Mail changes were a new area for managing contact connections, which at present require being added manually as automatic friend import and export systems such as those offered by OpenID and OpenSocial  have not yet been incorporated, a process some Web users have tired of as they use the growing number of social networking sites, few of which can interconnect with each other. A new tab displayed any updates contacts have made recently and a suggested friend list, in an system that has aimed to help e-mail contacts keep track of one another and to share information such as photos. The new social media boost Yahoo has given its e-mail users was also expected to be added to Yahoo's updated homepage, and later this week a glimpse of the company's new toolbar application will be available at toolbar.yahoo.com, Yahoo said. In its initial version the new toolbar will be available only to Microsoft Windows users running the Internet Explorer Web browser. Developers from outside Yahoo will gain greater access to having their applications seen by Yahoo Mail users, who will be able to use third-party programs to do things such as update their blogs from within Yahoo's latest e-mail offering. Yahoo Mail Upgrade Blurs Line Between E-mail And Social Networking In October Yahoo launched its Open Strategy initiative to unify its myriad online services and create a new more social network-like environment for consumers. The platform, dubbed Y!OS, was first described by Yahoo in April as a Web framework of sorts created to help unify the company's online services such as e-mail, photo and bookmark management, calendar planning and instant messaging, by allowing the Web pioneer's 500 million monthly visitors worldwide to use a single profile and command center. Monday's slate of new Yahoo features are the latest attempt by the company to make Y!OS, driven by co-founder and interim chief executive Jerry Yang, a successful strategy for remaining independent and competing against Internet giant Google. "Mail is the largest  dormant social graph. This is the first time we are exposing that in a significant way," Kremer said. Yahoo said the changes to its mail service were its "largest-scale implementation of its Y!OS initiative." Among the members of WebmasterWorld, one of the oldest and most popular Web sites serving mostly the technically-savvy people who manage Web sites and specialize in Search Engine Marketing (SEM), the prospect of a Yahoo Mail experience that is more like that of a social networking site brought both applause and trepidation. One WebmasterWorld member noted that while such a combination of e-mail and social networking might not appeal to everyone it could be a sign of things to come. "My email is sacred, no smarter features are required, security is all I want," wrote a WebmasterWorld member using the handle "JS_Harris." "That being said, I'm sure others feel differently, and the entire Internet is becoming quite the open source playground. As each playing piece tries to position for a wider appeal, they are all becoming one," the member added. Related Links :
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