When Will YOU Have the All-New Mail
Judging from the weekend comments, and because my last post answered one of the other pressing topics, the big question on many of your minds is “When will my account be switched out of beta?”. Unfortunately the official answer is, I really can’t say because exactly when the roll-out reaches you depends on the “farm” (short for server farm) where your account “lives.”
So to elaborate on this mysterious process, I managed to track down Skotch Vail, Director of Yahoo! Mail’s Front End (translation: the engineering folks working the rollout), and while I can’t tell you all individually when your accounts will go live, I can now offer a little more background on the process involved.
So without further ado, here’s the scoop. As has been mentioned before, there are A LOT of accounts to transition: 255 million (according to comScore). All of these user accounts are divided up into hundreds of farms. In advance of every release, we go through extensive internal QA, followed up by selective roll-outs to large numbers of employees (extended QA), but since we cannot replicate every possible scenario of user behavior, browser selection, computer hardware, operating system, and feature usage, we gradually roll the product out to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.
As we roll the updated code out to each farm, our engineers are closely monitoring for unforeseen issues. It’s also a fairly complex process because of the different types of Mail accounts on our system.
Of course you will now ask why we announce before everyone has it. We know that once it goes out to anyone, word travels fast, so we’d better make sure we explain ourselves. We realize it’s not a totally perfect process, but we really feel like this is the best way to handle something of this magnitude.
Hopefully that helps explain things a little, and thanks much to Skotch for taking the time to chat.
Ryan
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail
- Subscribe via RSS
- 154 Comments
September 19th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
I DO NOT WANT THE NEW MAIL SERVICE FROM YAHOO !!!!! i will stitch my home page and my mail service before i go thru that mess again tried beta it was worthless
Dan
September 19th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Thanks for the update - I’m sorry that you have negative people who post thoughtless comments. Yahoo is a free service - Windows Vista is paid for. Yahoo has always called it a “Beta” version - Vista is a “Beta” version but is not marketed as such. In addition, you at least attempt to address rollouts - Vista just has rumors about service packs. People who look a free gift horse in the mouth should consider the industry standard (or lack thereof) before posting comments. Keep up the good work and I look forward to the rollout.
September 19th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
I genuinely appreciate your efforts to upgrade your service and communicate to your users. But two things that I think require immediate attention are:
1) Use of character quoting (i.e. quoting original mail in replies and prefixing with “> “). This was standard internet etiquette for over a decade before Outlook became prevalent. And those of us that have been around the ‘net for more than 10 years still prefer it.
2) The terrible reliability of the web servers. In any given day, I see many errors from one of three classes: “Ouch! CURL error -8″, “HTTP Unexpected response”, “Server not responding” (all errors my approximation from memory).
I simultaneously find it hard to believe that the beta upgrade could have caused this and that the beta upgrade could not have caused this.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
i happen to like the beta version better
September 19th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
The only annoying thing I have personally had was the HTTP thing that often drives me nuts (the silly little window interruption in beta mail) However, I still think Y! is the best suited to me and my needs perfectly. We all have preffered differences, but when it’s free, you can’t please everyone 100% sooo, with that said, looking forward to Y!’s growth and all the new stuff y’all have later down the road…
September 19th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
chao thay
thay hay cho em de thi mon he thong thong tin wuan ly
September 19th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
The new question is: When will it be released for Safari?
September 19th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Yo, Ryan: Yahoo! Mail customers are loyal folks…we’ll ensure almost anything to support you guys…but Yahoo’s ambiguous, vague, nebulous answers to our straight-forward questions test our patience and make us wonder if the other free E-Mail services out there might be more responsive to our concerns. An example is your most recent post to the YMailUpdates blog…you did a great job of telling us absolutely nothing. All we want to know is when we can reasonably expect the rollout of the new Yahoo! Mail to be complete…next week, next month, next year? As long as you’ve been in Beta, you’d think you’d have a better reply to that answer than a shoulder shrug and “I dunno…” THAT is what bugs us.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
I must say that I love the new yahoo mail. I’m still in beta and I’m looking forward to have the final version.
However I do have a complaint and it’s not about yahoo mail itself. You do not support Opera and it’s a shame. Opera is the best webrowser i’ve ever used, even better than firefox, IE or safari. You should support it. Hopefully it’ll see its market share grow and you’ll start supporting this webrowser.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
What’s the big deal? Everyone just calm down…you’ll get it when you get it. I’m still in beta, my mail account still works, and I’ll have the full version whenever it comes to me. So, calm down and get over it.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:03 am
I think you should move the Mail!Plus accounts at first.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:53 am
I’ve been using Beta since it came out, and I love it, so I am unlikely to notice when it changes to standard. Nonetheless, Ryan, I think posting an estimated date of completion, along with the explanation you provided above, would not be difficult, and would have been more useful.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:44 am
I love the new interface and being an IT guy myself I know these things take time. For all the non-believers then go…I think yahoo will be fine 254,000,000 instead of 255,000,000 accounts….don’t worry you will be back….msn live mail, gmail and aol mail all have nothing on yahoo mail — old and new. enjoy your mediocre mail system and you will be back on yahoo before you can figure out where things are hidden on vista now.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Alrighty then - when will it work on Safari?
September 20th, 2007 at 3:41 am
I’m having problems getting into my mail too. I get three error messages that I have to go through before I can get in. It’s getting really annoying. I hope I’m switched soon.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:06 am
As a paying customer for Yahoo Mail Plus as I see it Yahoo’s marketing group got way out in front of its engineers. Near as I can tell the only “improvement” is that you removed the “BETA” tag from the product, but in all other respects have made few changes, visible to the end user. to the buggy, poorly performing code you got from Oddpost several years ago. Folders still don’t open. Fonts are 6pt. and can’t be modified. I get something called “error #5,” and screen refresh is a joke. I have a 3Mb/Sec broadband connection so don’t blame performance on my Internet service. You’ve got a lot more explaining to do.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:40 am
I LOVE Yahoo! mail Beta and can’t wait to be switched over to the real thing. I tried gmail a couple of times but came running back to Yahoo! because it is SO much more convenient. My favorite feature is the “click & drag” of messages into folders. With gmail, when i wanted to file messages away, I had to do it one message at a time, and it was like a 5 or 6 click process. It really made me appreciate Yahoo! and all the hard work you guys are doing to create such an awesome FREE email service. Thanks guys!
September 20th, 2007 at 5:43 am
I’m still waiting, but I appreciate the update. I also appreciate the regular postings on the mail blog, very nice. Thank you!!!
On another note, I would like to second Scott’s comments on the use of character quoting (i.e. quoting original mail in replies and prefixing with “>“). I think this is a great feature to have and would like Yahoo email to offer it.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:00 am
I was trying the Beta Yahoo Mail for several weeks . Only complaint was I had to click through three or four error messages (”Object missing” or something like that) but I just assumed that was part of the process with a Beta. In the last week I can no longer retrieve my mail at all, other than what I see in the baloon if I hover over a message in the preview.
Could it be that there is a Windows update that “accidentally” zapped the competition. I run XP and use the latest versions of Firefax and IE Explorer. Same problem in both browsers.
Help.
Etahn
September 20th, 2007 at 6:00 am
Generally like the Beta, but am very disappointed that the filters don’t seem to be working consistently. Some days on some folders and not on others. But otherwise good, not original but good. Netscape mail started this look and functionality years ago and Mozilla/Thunderbird continues it today.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:26 am
Please i want to go back to yahoo mail classic not yahoo Beta. My reason is not able to access my mail when possible.
Thanks Engr. Fidelis N. Anugwa.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:30 am
Like Scott, I have been wanting the “> ” for prefixed quotes for a long time. I emailed Yahoo! about it when Beta came out… must have been a couple years ago now.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:53 am
The answer to a “when” question typically requires a measurement of time - minutes, hours, days, weeks, months.
How about we make it fill-in-the-blank: “the rollout of the new Yahoo Mail will start to public users on _________ (date). We expect the entire rollout of the new Yahoo Mail will take ____ (number) _______ (unit of time).”
That’s all we asking for. Answering the question is more important than the answer itself.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:28 am
For those of us who are paid Yahoo Plus users and don’t like Beta, will we be forced to switch eventually or will the classic mail reader still be available to us?
September 20th, 2007 at 7:29 am
I find the yahoo Beta mail cumbersome at best it takes 2 screens now to get to my mail (I am sure this is to get another ad in my face) and then it takes a long time (10 - 15 seconds) to load the mail page and a long time to load mail each time I click on one. The ad I can live w/ as I know you need to make a living the long lag times I cannot. (Yes I use this over a very, very fast line @ work). So I have relegated my Yahoo mail to my “spam” mail and use Gmail regularly because Gmail is so much more responsive (and I get to skip the itermediate ad step).
September 20th, 2007 at 7:29 am
The new yahoo mail looks and feel great but it sorely miss a very usefull feature found in the classic yahoo mail: the ability to identify emails addressed to AddressGuard diposable emails via color codes. Just because of this I cannot switch to the new version. Please please, could you implement this feature in the new yahoo mail.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:34 am
I must say, I was initially very excited about the Yahoo email upgrade, and was one of the first people to jump on board. I was also very likely one of the first to jump off board. Yahoo Mail Beta is far too much like gmail, an account I also have and never use. Don’t follow the competition, innovate your own software.
I certainly hope you never force us all into the new mail system, as I know I would be sad to leave yahoo as my main account.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:42 am
I had to switch back to old mail this weekend when I could not get into mail beta. Yahoo customer service said it was a known bug with my ISP-comcast. I’ve been using comcast as long as I’ve had mail-beta and never encountered this issue I just wonder????? Not impressed
September 20th, 2007 at 8:47 am
My opinion on the Yahoo Beta style message site is that I hope you will allow some of us who are happy with the classic style to keep it. I feel cramped by the Beta style. There is too much going on in it and not alot of space to see your messages and to read them. It is very irritating to have to constantly hit the arrow button to get rid of the advertisement on the right side just to read the emails. I am not a computer geek. To me the information on the page is far to busy and I prefer the classic style. That style is simple and you are allowed to see your list of emails and to read the emails stretched out and not cramped in as in the Beta style. But there will be some who will want the Beta and some will want to keep the classic. I hope you will allow the user to choose which system they wish to use.
As for the person or persons who get rude about the change, there is no cause to be rude. You either like or don’t. Yahoo is trying to update their services and there is no reason to show bad manners. I know it is the in thing now days to be rude, but be an adult and show consideration for others or keep your rudeness to yourself.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:58 am
[…] paying customers should be let in first, I appreciate the fact that someone is listening. Also, a post today on the official Y! Mail blog offers some more details on the roll […]
September 20th, 2007 at 9:13 am
I like the classic Yahoo mail, I like being able to choose my colors, and to color code downloaded mail for other accounts and Address Guard mailboxes. I also like the quotes prefaced by > and resent having to “mark” previous mail quotes myself manually
September 20th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Forgot to say: I am a MailPlus customr so, it’s not free, although the cost is minimal, and I really hate being forced to go to a “look” and interface I don’t like. One reason I chose Yahoo Mail originally, all those years ago, was the ability to choose my own color scheme for the page.
September 20th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Great thanks for the update as to how you are migrating all of us onto the new Mail servers, but you forgot to give the timeframe, or as with all Yahoo projects, I suppose there is none.
For once though it would be good to publish at least when you “expect” to be all done.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Please be patient, for those who don’t work in IT, it seems to be a very simple process, but if you’re not careful it can become a real mess and when that happens your comments will ask why they do that without a proper rollout plan.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I print a lot of my emails, and I like how they looked with the “old” system, i.e. with the Yahoo logo in the upper left corner. The new print format looks like a refugee from a .txt file; c’mon, guys, lets’s make it look like something!!
September 20th, 2007 at 11:19 am
i was just wondering how long you think i will be waiting to get my email changed becasue my dad’s email has changed already, btw i love what you have done!!! if there is nayway you can get back to me plz do, thank you very much
September 20th, 2007 at 11:25 am
I have been using Yahoo Mail for years and I don’t mind the new version. Sometimes it is a bit heavy because they’ve tried to pack so much into it, but basically I like it.
However, the new Yahoo Go! is a disaster. I primarily used the old version for email, calender and contacts. It worked great. It synced everything with my phone with no worries. I just had to set how often I wanted it to sync and didn’t have to think about it after that. Now with the new one you have to start the software, login, then tell it to sync or to check mail. Then wait for it to check. Might as well be using a browser. It’s very frustrating. I wish the would have an option for just the things that I need it for. Unfortunately, I think I will have to change email because of the new software. Very disappointing.
I actually just posted an article to my blog about it not too long ago as well.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:35 am
The Beta is way too slow for prime time, IM(NS)HO. It’s painful to use.
(And yes, I have a fast computer and a great broadband connection.)
Oh, well. I appreciate that it’s free.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I tried the beta, it does not work well on Firefox. I hit “reply” and the screen freezes.
One great thing about yahoo mail was the simplicity and robustness of basic functions.
Dont try to be something you are not, keep doing what had made you successful to begin with. Make sure the new version is robust enough before switching everyone.
Not everything Google does is “cool”, dont feel the need to keep up…
September 20th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Got the upgrade to Beta, tried the upgrade Beta, hhhm. Not for me, but thanks anyway. Went back to the old school after a week.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I WANTED TO KNOW WHO I NEED TO CONTACT TO GET MY YAHOO E-MAIL FIXED. I CAN RECEIVE MAIL BUT CAN’T SEND. JUST GOES BLANK!
September 20th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I’ve tried the beta twice in the past year, and both times switched back to classic within a day. Maybe because I’ve been using it for 7 years, maybe more, I’m too stuck in my ways, but I don’t like the upgrade. Last time I tried it, I went and checked on email name availability at Hotmail and Gmail, I was so annoyed. Please put me at the end of the forced upgrade list.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I don’t particularly like the new email. I tried it and switched back. takes too long to load EVERYTHING.
I don’t even use outlook or outlook express, cause it takes too many resources, but I do use Mozilla Thunderbird, it won’t hijack your system ( anything msn gets hijacked by outlook and/or messenger when in use )
September 20th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
beta does not work on my Iphone or mac computer.
I hope they dont switch it for me . I had to switch back.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
what happened to yahoo photo? It worked really well for me then it disapeared..
I want it back was there a problem?
September 20th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
I think beta mail is awesome! It’s not the old boring you have 2 new messages. I miss the animations on the old yahoo mail though
September 20th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Beta mail is awesome
September 20th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Como estas? Muy bien!!!
September 20th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
I heard Yahoo purchased Zimbra. Why don’t they just roll that out. I use Zimbra WebMail… it rocks. The Yahoo Beta… Looks cool… the ad thingy on the right is a pain. I keep sliding it out of the way and soon as I click the mouse anyplace, it slides back.
The Yahoo webclient isn’t nearly as cool and solid as Zimbra. If what I am seeing is Yahoo’s bastardization of Zimbra… all I can say is ‘yikes’.
I often get time outs when my mailbox is loading.
I often get time out when attempting to open an email.
Seems like I get substantially more spam than I used to get. My ratio is about 10 - 15 spams to 1 valid email message. Is this related to new mail? Hard to tell.
Further at least two valid emails everyday are misclassified as spam. On a bad day about half of what shows up in my inbox is spam. Its hard to tell, and not likely, that this is related to the new mail webclient.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
I,m really thankful for your no strings attached service,since 2002,I,ve only had one problem and your team promptly replied when i asked for help,and next day my e-mail account was 100%.i look forward to the upcoming version,yall are doing a fine job,thanks again,Brad
September 20th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
I am a professional programmer. I have been known to write a few GUIs and use them too. If I had to choose, I’d choose Yahoo! Mail Classic over New Mail without hesitation. I too, actually tried New Mail a number of times, sometimes for days at a time, (I know. Wow! Days?) but I switched back each time because I prefer the way Classic Mail works. How a computer interface works is more important to me than how it looks. I can live without the drag-and-drop that New Mail has and Classic Mail doesn’t. I am perfectly fine with clicking a check box in a dialog to move mail. Maybe I like to copy an email subject from the inbox page and paste it into the search dialog to search for other email with that subject. I can do that in Mail Classic, but not in New Mail. I like to be able to search a page of email subjects or authors using a simple Ctrl-F, typing some text and hitting Enter. Can’t do this in New Mail. (Can’t do that in New Bookmarks, either.) I think New Mail could be made acceptable to me, but I doubt it will happen because, like the Windows operating systems, so many GUIs are drifting toward the lowest common denominator, glitz-and-glammor, entertainment-seeking, casual user and away from the basic power-user who wants an interface to fit like a glove, hit like a train and not to get in its own way. I like many aspects of New Mail, but I trust my instincts, and my instincts drove me to switch back to Mail Classic. I think that if I am forced to use New Mail, THAT will stink.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
To Anu: What version of Firefox are you using? Maybe you need to update that. I’ve used FF exclusively for over 2 years on both a G4 ibook (mac) and 3 different Windows machines of varying ages/specs with no problems at all.
IMO..like some of the others..it is a FREE product… be happy you have it at all, lol. I do like the new Y! beta -works for me!
September 20th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
The “new and improved” email looks like Widoze Lookout. It’s a serious bandwidth hog that does NOTHING to improve. I am sticking with the original.
There is a motto: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
September 20th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
You guys at least listened to my complaint about the stupid text I had to type in the box every time I sent and email and fixed it, so it seems to work well now. It was preventing the 419 scammers from using Yahoo! anyway, they still prefer it. Not much you can do about that.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Sorry about that: “it was not preventing the 419 scammers from using Yahoo! anyway”. I do that via allreaders.net.
September 20th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
When you can finally make your business mail users (i.e. the ones who actually PAY for mail) able to access their mail from a wireless device in a reasonable application (using plain html version is horrible!) , I might switch. I am so close to switching to Gmail due to this issue!
September 21st, 2007 at 12:58 am
I have been using yahoomail for years and i prefer yahoomail beta to the original yahoomail.
September 21st, 2007 at 1:06 am
Think you could even try making it Safari compatible?
September 21st, 2007 at 2:50 am
i would always prefer quick and easy to operate, simple to understand and manouvre
September 21st, 2007 at 2:54 am
I have been using the yahoomail for 5 year for now well foir me I dont have any comment everything is great.
September 21st, 2007 at 3:50 am
There was already a cryptic mention of Safari compatibility…
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Y-Mail/message/12971
which seems to have been an announcement of a non-existent Safari compatibility:
But you can see the chronicle here: