Yahoo, AOL Revamp E-Mail

Yahoo and AOL announced competing e-mail products today to try and give their dedicated millions something different to play with.

Yahoo brought the beta version of its new Yahoo Mail out of limited
testing to make it widely available.

Not to be outdone, former ISP and portal wannabe AOL officially launched its service to offer users a customized e-mail address.

Yahoo Mail is available to all users in the United States and 18
markets around the world.

The new version features “a sleek, easy-to-use” AJAX interface,
according to a statement, which means tighter online calendar integration, drag-and-drop e-mail organization, a message preview window and an
integrated RSS reader.

AOL My eAddress is a free e-mail service for registered users that allows them to pick their own
domain names to use. AOL will own the domain names.

Web users will be able to set up and register customized e-mail
addresses using the .com or .net domains, according to a statement.

After choosing their domains, users will be able to add 100
additional identities.

The customized e-mail address will also give users access to AOL’s
instant messenger client and the AOL network.

AOL My eAddress will come with 2GB of storage and will be compatible
with open mail clients that use the IMAP protocol, such as Outlook.

The e-mail products for both companies are already popular.

According to a Nielsen//NetRatings report, Yahoo Mail had a unique audience of 56,313,000 to AOL’s 34,078,000 accounting for 36.16 percent and 21.88 percent active reach, respectively.