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

Once again we’d like to thank everyone who submitted questions, and who stopped by to participate, during last week’s Anti-Spam Workshop with Matt (transcript here).  We received a lot of great questions, and Mark enjoyed the opportunity to answer questions, as well as hear directly from the users. One of the more interesting questions lead to a stat that Mark had never shared with me … and totally blew me away.

dlippman: Why don’t emails with the word “Lottery” and a few other Spam characteristics automatically go into my Spam folder?

Mark: I really wish we could! Catching a specific word is really hard. On the one hand, there are the risks that we’ll catch something legitimate — “Campus housing lottery this Friday” — which is what we call a “false positive.” (A “false positive” is any time our filters mistakenly mark something as spam when it isn’t)

On the other hand, if we build a filter for one specific word, there are often about a bazillion other ways the bad guys can spell it and still get their point across. Did you know there were 600,426,974,379,824,381,952 ways to spell \/!@g.r.a? (check out http://cockeyed.com/lessons/viagra/viagra.html)

I actually had to look up what that number translates to (turns out it’s a quintillion) and who would have thought that the “little blue miracle” could be re-written that many ways.

Check out the complete transcript from the Workshop here.  We will be doing more of these Workshops over the next few months, so if you have any themes you would like to recommend please feel free to suggest them (comments or email).

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

Believe it or not this was a total coincidence. Shorty after I posted about having seen the Where the Hell is Matt? video (and thus requesting your photo submissions showcasing where you use Yahoo! Mail) we were informed by the Yodel editor that Matt was going to make a speaking appearance at our main campus.

What many on campus DIDN’T know was that when he wasn’t spending that hour speaking he was actually being dragged all over campus to shoot scenes with various Yahoos. If you look really closely at the Mail team clip (0:55, pause if you need to) you will see a contemplative Liam in the center, with Matt just to the left and me wearing a hat just a little further to the left. If you look closely you can also see Mark, the anti-spam Czar.

The video is over on Yodel, so be sure to check it out!

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

In our ongoing efforts to help users connect, I thought it would be fun to let all the Windows and Mac users out there know that you now have something in common.  You can both use the All-New Yahoo! Mail in the Safari browser.

That’s right, the All-New Mail is now fully compatible with the latest Mac and Windows versions of the Safari browser.  It’s actually been rolling out over the last few weeks, so many of you have probably already noticed.

Our guys have worked very closely with folks from Apple to ensure that Safari users on both sides of the OS war can enjoy a great experience in Safari. (Unfortunately for me this work hasn’t netted me any Apple swag, but oh well.  I guess it’s probably more important to actually work on compatibility anyway.)

This also means that if you are someone who has straddled that fence because your work machine and home machine ran different systems (as I did for far too long), you have another browser option that will provide a consistent experience on both machines.

There it is…one more thing for Mac and PC users to agree on.  A great experience with YMail in Safari.

The Yahoo! Mail team…bringing users together.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

We’ve learned that some users may be intermittently encountering repeat requests for password authentication when completing some basic Mail activities (send, move, delete, etc.).

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.

UPDATE - 7/31
All issues should now be resolved. We apologize for the frustration.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

Yep, don’t miss a special opportunity to chat with the head of our Anti-Abuse team, Mark, and share all things spammy.  Mark is anxious to hear your thoughts and answer some of your questions about how to reduce spam.

You can pre-submit questions by signing into the workshop early, or you can sign in during the event and submit them live.  The timing will be from 4-5PM PT.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Also don’t forget to submit your pics or videos highlighting where you’ve been while accessing your YMail.  The deadline for submissions is today and I’ll be sending out rewards within the next two weeks.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

Some big news came out of the Zimbra camp last week.  Their downloadable client software was bumped up to an all new beta version on Thursday, and this one has some functionality that will be of particular interest to some YMail users.  Before I get to the nitty gritty, I should remind you that this is still a beta, and a lot of the synching options and functionality are still in the early stages.  Things could change considerably between now and the general release.

The first bit of cool news is the new default appearance.  When you open it the first thing you will probably notice is that it VERY closely resembles the All-New Yahoo! Mail.  Zimbra has several themes (or “skins”) that can be applied, and it now defaults to a Yahoo! option.  So if you like the interface of New Mail you will probably find this new default appearance quite cozy.  Of course there are still differences to the interface and functionality, but the look will be familiar.

Another benefit for YMail users is that Zimbra enables offline access to your Yahoo! Mail.   You’ll be able to compose, move, and also delete messages, and all of these activities will be pushed back to Yahoo! Mail the next time you connect.  That may sound mystical to some, but IMAP helps make it possible.  Yes, you read that last part right … Yahoo! Mail has dipped its toe into the IMAP pool and is testing the waters with Zimbra (after all, they are family).

The sync options are currently limited to Mail, so keep that in mind if you were hoping to play around with your Calendar and Address Book.  Regardless, this still represents an exciting new option for the YMail user who is frequently on the go (and hasn’t drank the iPhone kool-aid).

You can get more details about all of the changes over on the Zimbra blog.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

You’ve seen him on Yodel, and you’ve seen him rocking the ushanka on this very blog, but now you will have a chance to ask our resident “Anti-Spam Czar” Mark (aka the head of our anti-abuse team for Mail) all you wanted to know about spam.  Be sure to join us on Wednesday, July 30th, from 4-5PM PT, for a live, moderated chat with our anti-spam expert (NOTE: Over the weekend the Workshops page displayed an incorrect start time, but should now be correct).

During the session Mark and I will be responding to some of the top questions I’ve been receiving from users on the blog.  Users will also be able to submit questions in advance by visiting our Workshop page, as well as live during the event.

This will be a great opportunity to not only get a better understanding of the kind of steps you can take to reduce the spam you see, but and also to share some of your thoughts directly with the people who can make a difference…so don’t miss it!

***Someone suspected my cavalier attitude might have rubbed of on our Czar, so I swapped out the ushanka pic for something a little more formal.***

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

I’ve been getting some great submissions from users wanting to show off the places they have used their YMail account.  So far the big theme has been that people LOVE having the ability to check easily while traveling, but don’t let the world travelers have all the fun.

Maybe you have a favorite little coffee shop that you like to hang out and email from.  Maybe you are like my friend Thien and you just like sit on your friend’s stoop and leech his previously unsecured wifi signal.  It could be anything really, just try to capture some of the physical locations you frequent while accessing your Yahoo! Mail.  Hopefully something that shows you and the location at the same time (but not required).

Here you can see some lovely examples from the very friend who helped inspire this little idea (Asami forwarded the WhereTheHellisMatt.com link last week).  If you can accuratately identify either, or both, of the Taiwanese monuments she was photographed with, I might have a little something for  you.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

In the immortal words of the Brady kids:

“Autumn turns to winter and then winter turns to spring,
its not just a season, you know its goes for everything.”

So here I am to announce that the Yahoo! Mail blog has undergone some changes.  Some you can probably see pretty easily, but others may be a little less obvious.  I rolled out the changes last night, and will be making some other minor updates in the next week or so, but here are the highlights.

The most obvious change is the overall look.  The header and colors are updated, and the whole blog is a little wider.  I hope you all like the look.

Probably the most important changes though, are to the Comments section.  We’ve added functionality for threaded comments. This means that if someone wants to respond directly to an earlier comment, they can do so and it will appear with the original.

This should make it much easier for me to address certain questions, as well as make it easier for all of you to share your thoughts and advice with each other.

Another big change to Comments is the fact that any comments from me will be highlighted.  In the past you could look for my pic, but this will make it so much easier to find responses.

There will be more tweaks in the coming weeks, but those are the biggies.  If you run across any glitches feel free to email them to me directly.  In the meantime … don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride.

sha na na na na na na na, sha na na na na na

sha na na na na na na na, sha na na na na na

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail

A close friend of mine has been over in Taiwan for the last few months while her husband is there on business. Though this may be a bummer in that we never get to see her, it has proven to be a major boon for interesting and entertaining links (since her day is our night and vice versa she’s had some time on her hands).

So just the other day she passes along something especially awesome. It’s been around for a while, but I’d never seen it. Where the Hell is Matt? is a site created by a guy named Matt who basically traveled EVERYWHERE in the world and videotaped himself doing a silly dance. Sounds strange, but if you see it you will be blown away by how many places he managed to visit.

What does this have to do with you, me, or Yahoo! Mail? I’ll tell you. I’m going to totally ape his idea and ask you all to send me pictures or videos of you in all of the places you use Yahoo! Mail. Seeing as how you can access your account from just about any computer, and from an increasing number of fancy mobile devices, I’m hopeful to see some interesting diversity. I’m envisioning something that captures you in the picture as well, but I’ll leave it up to you.

I urge you to be as creative or boring as you want. Just please try to have some fun with it. Maybe a picture of you in front of a landmark, or perhaps just at a place people might not expect to see people checking email. If your laptop has a webcam you could even snap the pic yourself!

I’d like to post a bunch of them to this blog (either in a single post or a series). You can email the images directly to me (ymailblog1[at]yahoo.com) but if you have videos I’ll need you to upload them to a video site and send me the link. Yahoo! Video would be very cool, but YouTube is popular too (from what I hear).

Any that we use on the blog, and perhaps some others too, will receive some Yahoo! gear … so get those submissions in! Deadline will be the end of July.

Ryan Knight
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail