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Yahoo! announces newly revamped services, we (finally) notice

By on August 26, 2009 6:59 PM
8 comments

yahoomail We missed commenting on this earlier in the week when it came out, but Yahoo! made an announcement regarding its newly revamped set of services, including Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, and search.  Featured among the changes are:

  • a new streamlined design (yup, Windows Live has that)
  • 3rd party apps (WL: well not really, unless you count in-house services like SkyDrive and Calendar, or additions to the profile page)
  • enhanced photo sharing (yup, Windows Live has that – oops, it’s turned off at the moment)
  • increased attachment limits (umm, WL Hotmail trails all mail services listed in this Wikipedia comparison at 10mb – the new Yahoo! will have 25)
  • more social features (yup, Windows Live has that)
  • mobile email features (Windows Live has that, but Yahoo! has announced support for downloading pdf and Office attachments and access to personal folders)
  • video calls (yup, but Yahoo! is featuring full screen calls.  Is that coming for WLMessenger?)
  • Yahoo! Insider (this sounds like the Today page.  Doesn’t everyone just turn that off?)
  • language selector (does the Bing Translator bot count?)
  • improved iPhone app (ummm, no – just POP for Mail or 3rd party apps)

In addition, Yahoo! is testing a new search results page (??), which sounds a lot like Bing Jr.  The Bing-Yahoo! partnership is a year away at least, even if it does clear regulatory hurdles, and these new changes are the result of engineering that happened before the partnership was announced, so not too surprising to see continued innovation for Yahoo! search, now and moving forward.

This will be interesting to watch moving forward, as Windows Live is in direct competition with Yahoo! services, but at the same time Microsoft needs Yahoo! to succeed in order to drive Bing traffic.  Will Wave 4 return serve?  We should find out soon.

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Comments

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/kdjani/default.aspx kdjani

    I am surprised that you are not aware that Live Messenger has Video calls for quiet some time along with full screen.
    You probably have never tried it, but its been there. Get the latest Wave 3. You will even get VGA if the bandwith and machine meets the requirements

  • JohnCz

    I agree that its probably in Microsoft’s interest to see Yahoo doing more to retain their user base. Obviously Microsoft’s competing services cannot stand pat. “We should find out soon.”…well, I wish that were true but not a peep from the Windows Live Team sofar.

    The biggest news maker for me was full-screen video messaging. I think Microsoft is positioning itself to leap frog these Yahoo/3rd party apps once they fully integrate Live Mesh and provide a Live App Store.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/Kip-Kniskern/default.aspx Kip Kniskern

    Yes I’m certainly aware that Messenger has video calls, although I admit I don’t use it. Full screen video is a different story, however. We’ve seen references to it, and have heard that some users have it now (in testing?), but we’re not aware that full screen video is available for all Messenger users. Happy to stand corrected if I’m wrong.

  • jntowers

    We’ve had full-screen video call capability since short after our daughter was born (January) – we used / use it all the time with family members that live far away. Those family members also used full-screen. So I’d say we’ve had it since, maybe, February? Maybe before then, but we never really tried it until after she was born. And, historically speaking, I have not received new features early. :)

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/ian_2D00_live/default.aspx ian-live

    Good lord, full-screen video calls have been available forever, provided you’re actually in a video-call with voice and not just webcam. In the old messenger (at least version 7), it used to change the resolution of the monitor to 640×480, though now they’ve significantly improved how messenger handles the size/quality so no long does it change res.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/JSYOUNG571/default.aspx JSYOUNG571

    Well it is about time. Yahoo is the last of all services to make changes. If Windows Live does not get on the ball,they are going to find themselves behind Yahoo. Has anyone notice that Bing is not allowing you to go back and look at the previous daily art pages anymore? One step in the right direction would be to upgrade Windows Live Mobile Software. We still can not sync our Windows Live Calanders with our phones. Windows Live Web messenger in Hotmail should work on every Windows Live page without being confined to just the hotmail page and contact page. Windows Live should go ahead and release Vidoe messeage beta into Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger. That is one of two keys missing in Windows Live Messenger. The other is not being able to leave a voice mail when you call someone on messenger. It is time for Windows Live to step their game up some more if they want to stay in the race.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/Tegument/default.aspx Tegument

    yeah Kip I caught that while reading this list as well, we’ve had full screen video calls for quite some time, would be happy to demonstrate when your online

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/Kip-Kniskern/default.aspx Kip Kniskern

    Sorry for the confusion – we’d been getting some tips about full screen video in messenger chat, apparently they were confused by Video Call, too. Anyway, it’s a +1 for Windows Live already having full screen Video Call service :)

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