Yahoo! + Earth Day = Freecycle it!
No matter which side of the Global Warming discussion you fall, I think one thing that just about everyone can agree on is that getting something you want, for free, is way cool. Especially if it is something that you want (and were about to spend money to get), or it’s something you want to get rid of (and can’t sell or might even have to pay to get taken away). Sounds to me like a win-win. Throw in a little something I like to call ‘good for the environment’ … and what we have, ladies and gents, is the trifecta!
So, in celebration of Earth Day this year, Yahoo! is focusing on one of the most important themes of environmentalism: Reuse. Yesterday we began spotlighting a “Free is Good” microsite (green.yahoo.com/earth-day) that features Freecycle and other Reuse groups. These organizations use the Yahoo! Groups platform to enable people in local communities to give and receive “free” goods from their neighbors.
To give all of you even more incentive (and potentially even more stuff to Freecycle) from April 20 – May 4th we will “hide” special prizes in randomly selected Freecycle and other reuse groups. These prizes are specifically eco-friendly in nature (e.g. a Smart car, organic food delivery, eco-resort trip, concert tickets to Sheryl Crow, other locally relevant cool prizes and a fan favorite – toilet paper (as long as you don’t try to recycle it, too). We are also featuring real stories from real people who have found “treasures” on Freecycle.
There’s no time like the present. Fire up that Yahoo! Mail and start cranking out messages to people in your local Reuse Group. After all, Yahoo! Mail messages represent more than half of all Yahoo! Groups email (and you wondered what this had to do with Yahoo! Mail), so there’s a pretty good chance that if something is Freecycled through these Groups … Yahoo! Mail was in on the fun. 
Ryan K.
Community Manager
Yahoo! Mail
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- 25 Comments
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:20 am
Dear Ryan,
I am an avid user of Yahoo! Mail Classic. I have noticed many changes to the interface but I don’t see any mention on the blog. Can you please keep us up-to-date on how Classic is changing? For example, what is the “flag” feature? Why the new position of attachments? Etc., Etc.
Also, I have a huge request: when the composer creates a reply message or a forwarded message, it *always* puts “>” before each line. Can you PLEASE make this optional! I generally want the “>”s in replied mail, but not in forwarded mail. I’d like to have the option of eliminating the “>” for both replies and forwarded messages.
(The ability to eliminate “>”s would be especially helpful if a message bounces and you need to resend it from Outgoing Messages. At the moment, there is no way of doing this without painfully manually removing the “>”s.)
This change would markedly enhance my user experience.
Thanks.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:29 am
Hi Michael,
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Funny that you ask ;) We had started an update to Classic late last year, but postponed it over the holidays. After making some more tweaks we are starting up the rollout again. This time I wanted to wait until more users would actually see the changes, which had me planning to post tomorrow (which I’m still going to do).
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Thanks for the suggestion on the “>” frustration. I’ll pass it along to our Product Managers.
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Ryan
Yahoo! Mail
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April 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Michael, try pushing Options->Mail Options->General. There you can toggle off the “>” on replies and forwards. I have been doing this for years on yahoo, and it is not too bad for replies. (Certainly correct for forwards, in my view.) –Bob
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Hey Ryan,
Last I checked, IMAP was good for the environment! ;-)
Remember, I will PAY for it. I don’t expect it to be free… and it can even cost more than your POP service. I’m fine with that.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:31 am
Thanks to Bob for the tip, but I have to add some clarifications.
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The option that Bob describes does exist, but only within the All-New Mail. If you are using Classic Mail that option isn’t offered. I did just chat with the product folks and they will look into incorporating it into Classic, but I don’t know if/when it will happen.
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Something else to keep in mind is that if you are using Classic and reply/forward in RICH TEXT, the “>” are replaced with a thin blue line that runs down the side of the forwarded content.
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Ryan
Yahoo! Mail
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April 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 am
Hi Ryan,
How about Free Spam for all yahoo email accounts.
I really hope that all yahoo email account should be able to create more filters to fight spams.
Thanks,
Yong
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
hey ryan k why is it taking so long roll update for yahoo mail classic also why cant we have new color scheme for classic,new mail like black,royal blue or grey and why are u always avoiding the question of imap and intergrate calender with new yahoomail and update calender for new classic and address, give us faster time for customerfeedback on mail issue are u going to avoid my question just like the rest of the people on ymailblog this how u and yahoo treat ymail user i hope to get respone from if u and yahoo real care about its customer cause love yahoo mail and its products
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
My wife’s Yahoo stand-alone mail program is on F304, it does have new Classic interface Mine, a merged Yahoo/SBCGlobal account, has F308. When can I expect the new Classic?
I like the new Yahoo Mail, but cannot take the huge intrusive ads that AT&T has pushed onto the site. Especially the side panel one, that once minimized..just pops right back.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
BTW, a new color scheme would be nice..as they have never changed. I would ask about Yahoo Calendar integration, but that has never changed, either.
And some of the features on new mail show ‘we’re still tweaking…” for over a year now- will thoes ever be updated?
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Hi Ryan,
Sometimes when I trying to read my yahoo email, something pop up and it fill some alien language ( i guess it is a programming language).
It also tell me to contact Yahoo! Customer Care.
Since i don’t know how to them, could you please convey the problem to the customer care?
Regards,
Nobel
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Hi Jay,
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Glad to see your passion for the product. Both Classic and All-New Mail offer a variety of color choices (about 15 and 6 respectively), but I’ll be happy to pass along those requests for more.
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With regard to IMAP questions…I’ve commented on it previously, but I’ll try again. My role here is to not only give you all a voice within these walls, but also to keep you as updated as possible about what is going on with YMail. As a public company I can’t always discuss product decisions, development, or schedules…but I’ll always push to get as much info out as fast as I can.
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All I can tell you about IMAP, at this point, is that I have been consistently voicing your interest.
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Ryan
Yahoo! Mail
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April 22nd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
What is this “Error 14″ that is disrupting Yahoo Mail right now?
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Ryan –
Thanks so much for listening to us users. I am most appreciative that Yahoo! provides this blog for customer input.
I also would like to let you know that I am really pleased that Yahoo! still offers Classic e-mail and I do hope that development will continue. I have tried All-New and prefer to stick with Classic.
BTW, I avoid using RICH TEXT because I never know what type of platform my recipient has. To be safe, I always send PLAIN TEXT e-mail. Incidentally, my business e-mail account uses PINE running on a UNIX system. This e-mail system can’t deal with HTML e-mail.
So, if the developers can provide an option for Classic Yahoo! e-mail to turn off “>” for forwarding, I would be most appreciative!
Please keep up the great work. Yahoo! E-mail is a terrific service that keeps getting better all the time.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Ryan,
How come html formatting seems be messed up with the New Yahoo Classic update? I get a lot of html newsletters and now they are all jumbled together with no spacing in between paragraphs… seems it’s not properly formatting p tags in html, any way to fix? Some of my e-mails are barely readable because of it.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:09 am
I am not having any trouble with HTML newsletters in Yahoo! E-mail Classic. I have checked 3 different newsletters from different senders. Also, plain text e-mail is working OK. However, attachments seem to be handled differently. A pop-up is being generated, which is blocked by my web browser so attachments are now less convenient than in the old version of Yahoo! E-mail Classic.
Jason, it is possible that the specific newsletter that you are receiving is coded improperly.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:42 am
How do i get rid of the “domainkey verified” whatever it is. It doesn’t work. I thought that it would help lower the amount of spam that comes to my mailbox. If anything, I’m getting more. Please help!!!!
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:18 am
It’s every single newsletter that I receive, which comes from multiple companies ranging from big brands to small letters… i check the html and they all are formatting with basic tags… by default margins are supposed to be added to tags but for some reason they aren’t… i’ve checked in firefox, IE and safari on Windows, Linux AND mac and they all appear the same.
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
that’s supposed to read Tag… but it disappeared… i’ve noticed some co-workers have the same problem… but some don’t…. is the new yahoo classic not in wide release yet?
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Jason,
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I’ll look into the HTML rendering issue, and the updated classic is not in wide release yet. It will continue to rollout gradually over the coming weeks.
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Ryan
Yahoo! Mail
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
awesome ryan! thanks, love the blog, just gained another reader!
April 24th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Ryan,
While I’m sure that we all appreciate your statements that you’re voicing our interests in IMAP, I’m getting the feeling that implementing IMAP (Free or Paid) is not a company priority.
Are we simply wasting our time waiting for it from Ymail?
April 30th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I’m an avid Y!Mailer and I would love to have IMAP with my Y!Mail account; it’s one of the only reasons I don’t use it as my primary e-mail account since I horde all my e-mail (esp. sent mail).
I like Gmail but I don’t use it b/c I don’t like their privacy policy; you can tell me to the cows come home that they aren’t reading my e-mail, but when the site pulls data from my e-mails it’s still reading it.
My primary account is through .Mac (Mac user here!) and my secondary account is through Y!Mail. I get a free Y!Mail Plus account because of our DSL provider, and would **LOVE** to use it primarily.
IMAP…IMAP…IMAP!
Thanks Ryan!
JG
May 1st, 2008 at 2:24 am
Come on, are you for real???
Where is the freecycle link that you use to gets hits on your page and money from home depot???
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 am
I would like to continue to use freecycle, as it is great for the enviorment and landfills, but since you took away the full size subject line in the mailbox, it’s to time consuming to open every email and want list, as I can no longer just scan the subject titles. (the only thing that fits now is freecyle and town/city) I don’t know y you are pushing it when you are making it SO less user friendly.
I realize you are trying to make unlimited storage, but I would far rather delete to make room than give up the options.
my 2cents
Mark
May 5th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Its a cool thing that Yahoo is supporting this. I have joined the local group here and doing what i can.