Yahoo Revamps Inbox, Opens to Developers - Page 2

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Katz also notes online marketers might not be too thrilled with Yahoo's new e-mailing filtering since users will spend more time checking e-mail from trusted connections, than random marketing pitches. "Some marketers might see their campaign stats drop off because of this," she said.

A new Yahoo Toolbar will be available later this week as a "sneak preview" as a download. The Yahoo Toolbar provides new e-mail alerts and news feeds from select sources. You can customize the Toolbar to monitor items on eBay and find local movie times. The Toolbar will also offer updates from a user's list of personal connections on the Yahoo network. Yahoo said eventually it plans to link to other Web sites so you could, for example, keep up to date on a friend's activities via a non-Yahoo Web site.

Picture this

Third applications now integrated with Yahoo Mail (with more to follow) include Family Journal for building a family tree, Flixster for sharing movie reviews show times and related info, WordPress for quickly posting photos and links from e-mail into a blog and Xoopit for accessing and sharing photos and links to photo sharing sites in your inbox.

Patel said despite the popularity of photo-sharing sites, e-mail is still the most common way people share photos. "There are more photos in attachments shared in Yahoo Mail in a week, than are updated to Flickr in a year," he said. "It's an activity people use all the time."

Forrester's Katz said Yahoo is adding a lot of utility with Flickr and Xoopit on its e-mail page. "Being able to search through your mail box and get a view of all your photos is incredibly useful,' she said.

Yahoo's bold moves

Altimeter Group founder and analyst Charlene Li, said the big Web portals are battling each other to show who can be more open and these moves put Yahoo in the lead. "If you have an open platform for users and developers, it will attract more casual users and make it more compelling for the active ones," she told InternetNews.com.

"Open is a core part of Yahoo's strategy. You see Google and Microsoft being more open, but Yahoo is really saying "Let's go for it'. This keeps Yahoo cutting edge and relevant."

One thing that was not discussed at today's event was CEO Jerry Yang who has announced he plans to step down from the post as soon as Yahoo can find a replacement. Yang plans to stay on as "Chief Yahoo" and a member of the Board.

But as today's announcements build on strategies Yang laid out months ago and will take a while to play out, the new CEO's main job will likely be to lead the implementation of these new services, particularly as Yang will have a hand in choosing his successor.