Almost time to say goodbye to Feeds in the All-New Yahoo! Mail
- Posted October 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm by Ryan
- Categories: All-New Mail, General
Over the next several weeks, the RSS Feeds Reader (integrated into the sidebar of the All-New Mail) will begin to ease off into the sunset. Overall usage of the feature was very low, and we’ve made the choice to focus our development resources on features and functionality that are valuable to the most users.
All of your feeds are safe, and can all be found over at MyYahoo! There you can continue to access all of your favorite feeds, along with a host of other useful tools and modules (personally I couldn’t live without my Fantasy Sports, EW.com, and Personal Assistant modules).
A very limited number of preview servers have already begun the transition, while other servers will start to see the change over the next few weeks. Initially the Feeds link will remain in your sidebar, and will provide the following message:
We’ve learned that some users may have encountered errors while attempting to access their Feeds over the last day or so, but those are completely unrelated. Nonetheless, we are working to get that issue resolved ASAP and make sure our Customer Care agents are clear on the timing of the actual change.
Again, we apologize to those of you who have enjoyed using the feature, and want you to know that decisions like these are not made without careful consideration. It was a tough call, but one that makes sense for the overall Mail Community.
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- 169 Comments
October 24th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I actually used this service, i guess i will have to use another rss service because im not really a fan of the my yahoo page. I liked the ability to read the posts within the email window.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I agree. My Yahoo is a terrible format! Having my RSS feeds right below my inbox was simple and easy.
Guess it is time to make the switch to gmail…
October 25th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
One of the best things about it, was that i was able to forward any posts with a few clicks, whereas with My Yahoo its not as easy.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I totally agree with you.
I WANT MY RSSs on YAHOO WEBMAIL BACK !!!
I don’t like the RSS on My Yahoo… Please give me the RSS on Yahoo Webmail back….
October 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Seriously, this is just ridiculous.
MyYahoo is a horribly clunky way to have to view RSS feeds, and the decision to have that be the only way to read our feeds makes me seriously consider moving my (paid!) account elsewhere.
Bad call, guys. Way to make it obvious you don’t care at all about what your customers want.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am
wow, S, there are about a zillion and a half RSS readers out there, dude. my yahoo is not the only one. google reader, igoogle, and netvibes are just a few names that pop to mind.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Thats not the point. It doesn’t matter that there are other RSS readers. The point was the convenience of having the RSS feeds along side the inbox. The point is that we didn’t HAVE to navigate away from our inbox to check RSS feeds. They were just there along side e-mail. It was a beautiful thing.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Wow, that’s annoying. I liked the feeds in Y!Mail. I guess I’ll have to make the switch early, as I’m getting that error whenever I try to access feeds. Also, for months now I’ve gotten errors when trying to add new feeds. They show up on My Yahoo!, but not Y!Mail.
Strikes me as kind of funny you’re putting recourses to fixing bugs in feeds as you delete the feature. Also kinda funny options / filters, and accounts have said “pardon appearance during construction” for years.
Bad call. Wasn’t expecting feature deletions to be noticeable part of Y!Mail. Whatever, off to My Yahoo.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Mmm, I agree that the RSS option in Yahoo Mail was not very good. It is much much better the one offered by Google.
I hoped you would have improved it, but if it is not your goal, I agree with you that it is better to just delete it and focus on other options.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Been using the Google Reader the last few hours. Now THAT is an RSS Feed reader!!! I’m not a big fan of Google data mining so I use the CustomizeGoogle FireFox add-on and anonymize my Googling (searches AND now reader). Sorry, Yahoo. Bad call on canceling the “All Feeds” link in Y!M. My.yahoo is not an adequate substitute. Take a look at google.com/reader. Wish Yahoo had a similar feature.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
After reading this, I moved all my feeds over to google reader and I must say that I’m impressed. While I really liked having my feeds alongside my inbox – something I keep running all day long in a browser window, I guess I’ll just have to get used to not spending as much time with Y!mail during the day.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Confused. Will all my modules disappear?
November 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I wonder the same thing Elena. I wonder if all my music and my pics disappear too? i hope not.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:35 am
YES the modules don’t even display or add any /or all feeds anymore. I read in one post that they are working on it but the RSS feeds are not displaying in modues for many sites that say they offer the My Yahoo option.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:39 am
I should clarify that many are still there but I have tried for weeks to add more where there are options to and a message pops up saying not available at this time or similar. I also have lost some modules . Yahoo is so messed up and not the way to go anymore. It’s sad and they don’t listen or care about their users. I’ve loved Yahoo for more years than I can remember but not this past year. Sure we can go else where but is that the idea – to lose users??
October 24th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I used the feeds list quite extensively. Its location was handy (just near me email). Although my yahoo page is an attempt to make it more trendy, its still a different page. I would have liked if you could just let feeds list be there in mail page and declare that you would not support / augment functionality in it.
uhh ! what the heck, I will get used to the my yahoo page soon.
Thanks.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
i would never read this blog if it wasn’t for the feeds. bye bye feeds… bye bye mail blog and ryan’s 15 minutes of fame.
and i use the service often. shame, i will miss it.
October 26th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Completely agree. This is a bad bad move for Yahoo mail. One less reason to use YMail, might as well shift over to Gmail more. I really loved the RSS reader.
And as of when do you go delete functionality from software just because its not widely used?! It seems to be working just fine.
November 23rd, 2008 at 10:43 pm
same thing here steve, I would also like to say goodbye to my 30 minutes of fame.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I really liked the feed as well. I didn’t see any problems with it at all. I really dislike my yahoo! and I really dislike even more the fact that you guys are trying to force me to use it. Why can’t you let the feature just exist as is and not make any new improvements to it? You can still use your development resources elsewhere, and those of us that like this feature will be happy to still have it in tact? This doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request to me. do you?
October 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Awwe I read all of the yahoo blogs and really try to support their services. The RSS feed reader in mail I thought was excellent. Maybe not the most robust, but I loved that I could accomplish so many things (read so many sites) just from my inbox…not have to leave that page. It is/was awesome. I was one of the users that couldn’t access their feeds yesterday and was freakin (shows you how much I relied on my yahoo mail feed reader). Anyway, so I started up a google RSS reader. Kinda sucks because now I feel more inclined to use my gmail account since they’re kinda linked. This bums me out! It was something that differentiated yahoo from the competition. :(
On that note, I also love the built in messenger. I was a heavy yahoo messenger but don’t use the desktop application AT ALL now that it’s built into mail. I looooove this feature so much. How is the usage on that? Is it facing extinction too?
October 24th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
One more vote for the disappointed to see the feeds go. Great usability to keep the news together with the mail, it was part of my morning routine. I almost never use the MyYahoo page.
Also, maybe I was slow on the uptake and did not check the Mail Blog carefully enough, but I never got a user friendly message telling me the feeds are going away, simply one stating that access is forbidden to that functionality. Really, guys? How did that get past QA?
I am still sticking to Y!Mail, and I hope the feeds will come back soon.
Alex
October 24th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I too am sticking with Yahoo! for the time being hoping that the feeds will return. However, I’ve got a gmail account synced up incase Yahoo keeps dissappointing me
October 24th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
What a bunch of dolts. My Yahoo is not the same as having RSS in your email inbox. Is it a niche? Of course because most users don’t know what RSS is. But to try and say My Yahoo is a substitute for RSS in email is ludicrous. I’m already using NewsGator so I’ll move everything there. I suspect the real problem is that RSS in Yahoo Mail is too buggy and it’s not worth it for you guys to figure it out. It was constantly malfunctioning and was limited in its timeframe scope. This kind of customer service is pathetic and you should be ashamed of this decision.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
WORD to everything you said!
October 24th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
[...] שימוש נמוכים ב-RSS Reader המובנה בתוך Yahoo! Mail, הגיעו להחלטה לוותר עליו ובשבועות הבאים הוא יעלם מהעולם. אני משער שזו עוד החלטה של יאהו על מנת שתוכל לעבוד [...]
October 24th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Ryan,
All Feeds started working again on my Y!M server farm. So in anticipation of the upcoming service shutdown, I removed all my feeds from Y!M. And guess what? They also disappeared from my.yahoo.com. LOL. Anyway, I’m on google.com/reader now. Thanks for the memories.
–Dan
October 24th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
PS: Isn’t it ironic, I’m forced to use google.com/reader to keep abreast of the Yahoo Mail Blog… :)
October 24th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
My feeds started working again as well… please don’t tell me it’s a mistake!
Ryan, is there any chance you guys can keep the feeds as is in Y!Mail? I don’t think anyone here is asking you to make change to them or make them super fancy or anything… just LEAVING THEM ALONE would make us happy. Please? Is that really such an issue for you guys? Giving your customers what they ask for?
October 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I agree. I’m perfectly fine with having the feeds as is, without an updates if thats what the concern is about. Focus on the my yahoo RSS feed reader if you must, but please leave the functionality for those of us who appreciate it in the mail box?
October 24th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
why not discontinue myYahoo…THAT actually sux. I guess now you can focus on a new calendar or notepad (LOL) application.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I’m going to miss the RSS feeds from yahoo mail. While my feeds are still around at my.yahoo, I’ve tried using them and frankly I found the feed integration inside my mailer to be a workable solution. I guess it’s over to google.com reader to give that a try….
October 24th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I’m going to have to agree with the majority of the other commenters. The RSS reader in Yahoo Mail, whatever its faults, offers several significant advantages over My Yahoo: 1) It keeps track of which articles are read/unread, 2) Because of #1 it allows you to see at a glance when a feed has new content, 3) It provides access to the whole article within the RSS reader (assuming the publisher provides it) instead of just a preview so you don’t have to load another web page to read the article, 4) It provides an easy way to print a feed article in a simple, reliable format unlike so many web page print formatting. My Yahoo is certainly a workable backup to Mail’s RSS reader, but it is in no way a reasonable substitute.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
The feeds in Yahoo Mail will not be missed by me. I started reading feeds there, but found the Google Reader is way simpler and better.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
why did you guys decided to get rid of the feeds from mail its fun to have it around
October 24th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
[...] Yahoo Mail blog broke the news that Feeds will no longer be available in the new Yahoo Mail and is going to join the [...]
October 24th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
wow — take away a great service like all feeds which is already integrated into the best web-based email service and move them to myyahoo which is completely and utterly useless. it’s like you guys had a brainstorm to see how to piss off your most loyal users.
guess i’ll be using google like everyone else.
brilliant.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Wow..after shutting down the development on Vista version of Yahoo! Messenger, now you’re trying to delete the RSS function on Yahoo! Mail? Now I am seriously disappointed this time. I use the RSS feeds on my mail. I rarely open my Yahoo! page.
Please be wise, many users prefer a simpler homepage (like Google.com) or even straight to their email inbox when they open a browser, NOT ONLY My Yahoo! page.
October 24th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Whaaaaaaaat ???
I love that RSS in my Inbox :s , and I don’t really like MyYahoo! when It comes to RSS .
October 24th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
It probably won’t change anything, but I’ll throw in my opinion with the others. The RSS feed may not be super fancy, but it’s definitely useful and, if removed from Yahoo Mail, will be greatly missed. I suspect with the bugs encountered with the RSS feed and the recent Yahoo layoffs, perhaps you just don’t have the manpower to support it anymore?
Anyway, please keep the RSS feed, even if it is not improved. (At least, allow us to enable it through some obscure option in Yahoo mail settings… you coudl even put in a disclaimer “RSS Feed not officially supported, use at your own risk”.)
October 25th, 2008 at 12:12 am
Removal of RSS Feeds from Yahoo Mail. It looks like Adding it to MyYahoo will never be the alternate and permanent solution.
Looks like Yahoo plans for an exclusive RSS reader like Google Reader.
Are there any such plans?
October 25th, 2008 at 12:38 am
[...] via YMailBlog [...]
October 25th, 2008 at 2:42 am
Yahoo App Platform is coming…Don’t worry..:)
October 25th, 2008 at 3:13 am
The king of the usability in general, Apple has added RSS feeds to mail reader in Leopard for some reason: They are practical and makes sense.
My Yahoo is a full feature RSS reader application, Mail could stay as a basic news reader.
Also as you remove features to concentrate on other things, will you stop 5-6 trivial, basic spams making into my inbox? MS lottery?! Personal message from AIM?!
October 25th, 2008 at 4:09 am
i don’t even know what you’re talking about so i don’t know if i’ll miss it or not. i’ve never been able to become informed in the use of the internet; blogs, facebook, u-tube, profiles etc. my limit is searching the net for information and e-mailing. regards, tom.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
LOL, tom, no offense but commenting on a blog might be considered blogging.
October 25th, 2008 at 4:15 am
i am a BIG fan of my Yahoo! page, i have a Google page but don’t use it,same goes for MSN. i use all the mail accounts but Yahoo! is my primary and has been for about 10 years now. i don’t use the RSS that often so i am not sad to see it go, also i was not too familiar with the IM option, i like having logs and not sure if it did that well. i use Adium on my mac and like that just fine, i used to use Pidgin on my PC. i wish i did not get so much SPAM but i think Microsoft said about 90% of mail is SPAM, i think they are conservative.
so good bye RSS, never really knew ya. see you on the main page, maybe.
October 25th, 2008 at 4:23 am
maybe I was one of the only people to use it. I don’t like the MyYahoo page much, since I prefer the clean and simple firefox default page with just a search engine on it. But the feeds in yahoo mail is what got me INTO feeds. So yeah. I’m not exactly pleased you guys are phasing them out. I really liked this feature.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Even if it was buggy, the RSS feeds are one of my Yahoo! Mail staples, I’ll be really sad to see them go. I liked the one stop shopping of it all, I could check my mail, check my feeds, and go on with my day, instead of checking my mail, signing in over on this other site, checking my feeds…etc. It’s too bad you can’t just leave em be, let us know you won’t be updating it, and let us have our buggy RSS fix. I know I wouldn’t complain. I understand resources though, and if it has to go, so be it. I’ll miss it though.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:37 am
never used RSS, the mainstream users from yahoo do not used it too.
ok, i think you guys from yahoo understand the important things now, because you started focussing on calender….it looks delicious ( a little bit late IMHO, but still thanks).
now you have to improve yahoo mail notepad, improve it,,you got the technology,use it. it could be look like yahoo bookmarks……bye the way you could connect yahoo bookmarks with yahoo mail,would be “social”
October 25th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I think it was a good call to get rid of the feeds in Y!Mail. I’m surprised how many people have commented on how much they loved it. My Yahoo is much better…I organize it like a newspaper with the tabs options (ie. Organizer, Front Page, Business, Sports, Local). Great call…hope Y! doesn’t lose many customers over it.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:32 am
I want my feeds back, I am quite happy with the service and I use it quite a lot. I don t want to receive my Feeds in my INBOX it will look and feel very disorganised.
Please reconsider your decision.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:05 am
In defence of My Yahoo! and Yahoo!’s move to get rid of RSS within Mail, I think it’s actually a good move.
I used RSS within Yahoo! Mail but it just never worked very well. Things that were read suddenly became unread, etc, etc. I went to My Yahoo! and haven’t looked back. I particularly like being able to thematically group my feeds and content on different pages as it makes my long list of feeds feel more manageable. The only thing that’s missing is the capability to track what you’ve read and what you haven’t, which for me isn’t such a big deal.
I guess the teams that work on My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Mail aren’t one and the same, and there’s certainly no merit in them both working on the same thing in different ways. Makes sense to have a single consistent approach.
How about a My Yahoo! tab within Mail as a compromise?
October 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
How about the compromise of letting both features exist? As I stated before, I really thinks its just a matter of preference. For those that like RSS in my yahoo! thats great. Read them there. For those of us who like our feed in yahoo! mail, great as well. Let us read them there. This is the age of Web 2.0. Computing power is cheap. We don’t want to be told how to use the internet, we want to be able to use it in the way we feel best suits our personality and style. Is it so much to ask to let it be?
October 25th, 2008 at 11:17 am
that’s pity, I love reading the rss feeds within the email every morning, it’s very useful feature. May be you should make “my yahoo” more popular doing something else with it, than transfering the rss feeds from yahoo mail…But if this decision is final one, then I think you should make the “My Yahoo” link more visible.
October 26th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Very good point. A year or so ago there was a link to My Yahoo at the top of the new mail page. This has since been removed. Hope they bring it back.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:58 am
The link is still there, its at the top right side of the page next to the search bar.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
This is very unfortunate, and inconvenient.
Yahoo is becoming more and more irrelevant.
I”ll go elsewhere.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I am very dissapointed to have this feature taken away….I do not like my yahoo at all.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I am sorry to hear this feature is being removed. I agree with couple of previous posts. Also, it represented an easy access to this blog (no need to navigate away from the inbox to check it – it was just there along side e-mail. :-S
October 25th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Does this mean I should alter my home page?
October 25th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
wow, I reallyiked this featured. I can even save the feed to a personal folder for later review or search within the same email application. In fact the news from this blog came through my email rss feed.
That’s why your stock is plummeting and you have to get rid of a lot of talented people. Because you are focusing on the wrong stuff for your users. Why not keep adding nice features to the strong email application yahoo has.
Well, I think that we as users (some of us paying users) don’t have a word on this.
October 25th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I myself wont miss it and and hopeful Yahoo will focus on other mail functions & features such as…..
*Inbox audio player (like Hotmail)
*Ability to BCC without putting yourself in the TO field
*New customizable color schemes/themes
*Attaching multiple files at once
*Ability to mark the importance of a message
*Request Read receipt on outgoing messages
*Auto spell check before sending
*Creating sub folders within folders
*Ability to attach an old message to a new outgoing message
*Ability to add your signature to random outgoing messages and just
“all” messages.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:06 am
I will miss it but I would also like to see all of these features as well. If we have to lose the RSS feature then let’s see some more mail features.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
E-mail and RSS should never have been combined to begin with — news and mail are two separate things and should be kept separate. I don’t use the new Yahoo mail because it’s too bloated, so this is a step in the right direction.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:04 am
You’re living in an old style of thinking. That was Web 1.0 – everything separate. This is the age of Web 2.0, where everything is integrated and interconnected. Again its still a matter of preference. you prefer to have the Feeds gone, I prefer to have them there.
Why must Yahoo! choose one way or the other? Why can’t you just give us the option? If users don’t like the feed service give them an option to hide it, or for those of us that do want it, give us an option to show it. I don’t like this either this or that. Give us options!
October 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I don’t get the insistence that systems integration is always better — why should unrelated things be interconnected? You probably don’t go to the Post Office to buy a newspaper, or pick up your mail at the corner newsstand. Mail and news have nothing to do with each other (unless someone is mailing a news article).
There’s no school like the old school!
October 27th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Again, matter of preference. You want your news and mail separate, and I respect that. I like the one stop shop of getting mail and news together. Thats why I don’t think Yahoo! should have gotten rid of the feeds from mail, but instead given us users the option of whether to display them or not. Can you agree with that?
October 25th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Ryan,
I’m sad to see the RSS feeds go. Any chance that the feeds can stay in yahoo mail? What degree of outcry from the yahoo! customer community is required to reverse the decision to take them out? Perhaps rather than remove the functionality, it would be better to educate yahoo users first what the feature is, and then how to use it?
October 25th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I agree, My Yahoo is a weak offering. The Feeds options was a great idea, why not follow thru? It never really worked in the first place, but it was better than a separate tab. In summary .. FAIL.
October 25th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
I lost access to my RSS feeds at least 3 days before the announcement. Not happy. I liked it all in one place. I never had a problems with it. Not happy. Don’t like having to to visit 2 pages.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:34 am
So you only get a few 100 readers a day for your rss feed, does that meanyou should close it? For those who use it its valuable or entertaining or they enjoy it. Its like saying paramedics shouldn’t carry defibrilators cos only one person a month will need one.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:46 am
steve,
I understand you are frustrated but that analogy is totally inappropriate. We are talking about a convenience oriented feature that the vast majority of users didn’t even know existed, not a life saving device. I’m happy to pass along legitimate frustration, but let’s keep things reasonable.
-Ryan
November 5th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I agree the analogy is inappropriate, but the point is valid. The decision to remove the RSS feeder is very short-sighted. Very few people adopt new types of technology right away-especially with no real publication of the feature. Would an analogy of speed-pass technology on tollways across America be more appropriate? Convienent, expensive to implement, and initially reluctant to gain acceptance in most states.
Besides, as a business decision this doesn’t make complete sense as the RSS feeder was a very efficient advertising system. Every time you clicked on anything a new ad would come up (for the non-paying users).
Finally the bottom line is that MyYahoo does not provide full RSS feeds. You’re forcing customers to accept an inferior product.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Andy,
It’s a better analogy, but I think it’s still a little off. Both require a certain initial investment to get going, but after the initial investment the speed pass doesn’t require much maintenance. The Feeds feature required ongoing maintenance, despite minimal adoption. Also, features in this type of environment have to coexist, meaning anything we add had to play well with the Feeds feature.
The team just feels that it makes the most sense to invest our resources in features that make sense for the majority of users. As the platform opens up for developers to create applications, people will have the ability to pick and choose which add-ons they want…rather than us forcing them into everyone’s experience.
If you have any additional feedback you’d like for me to share with the MyY team please feel free to share it.
-Ryan
October 26th, 2008 at 1:40 am
What a shame, I used this service a lot, to save news into my mail, or to forward posts to my friends, I will need to find another RSS reader, or My Y!, if the choice is made, there is nothing else to say. It was a very practical feature, I hope you guys at Y! keep it in mind for the next time, if there is any chance for bring it to life again.
thanks…
October 26th, 2008 at 2:15 am
I am very disappointed. I find this feature very useful and easy to use compared to MyYahoo!. I use it everyday and I have not experienced more trouble with it than the other features of the webmail.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:50 am
I’m wanting feeds back,
Them other sites don’t know how to act,
I think it’s special what the others lack,
So turn around and I’ll pick up the slack.
Dirty Mail,
You see these shackles, Liam I’m your slave,
I’ll let you 403 me if I misbehave,
It’s just that no one makes me feel this way,
…..
October 26th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Good riddance. Let’s focus on mail-related services. Like open IMAP on any client. What am I paying for again?
October 26th, 2008 at 6:35 am
I for one was glad to hear that Yahoo! was removing one piece of unused clutter from my mailbox. As soon as I read that, I quick hopped over to see if those lousy news headlines were gone too. No such luck.
I HATE being confronted with news headlines I have to click out of when Yahoo! KNOWS what I came there for was my e-mail INBOX.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Suzanne,
Thanks for the vote of confidence on the RSS change, but I’d like to also give you some context on the News module. For years now we have received overwhelming feedback from a large portion of our users that confirms that they like to be able to stay in Mail as much as possible. So our goal is to find a way to provide the right amount…but not too much.
The RSS Feeds are an example, but ultimately not one that most users gravitated to. The News module on the other hand is popular, as well as the weather, so we want to make sure we offer it but make it easy to bypass. Also, if you are a Plus user you have the option to go directly to your inbox and bypass that welcome page altogether.
Thanks for the feedback!
-Ryan
October 27th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Ryan,
Any chance of an “option” of whether or not to display the feeds? that way those who want them get them, and those who don’t, don’t have to see them?
October 28th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Hi Steve,
Unfortunately it’s not practical from a backend perspective to bog down the platform with more and more options that aren’t used. Our goal with this change is to increase efficiency and keep our team focused on features that benefit the majority of users.
-Ryan
October 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Ryan,
So exactly how one skips the News “module”? I think the backslash is already pretty evident I would be delighted if the RSS reader would be preserved “as is” if only as an option.
Maybe you can spin off the “feature” and some of us that like it would maintain it as part of YOS :)
October 31st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The option of going directly to your inbox (and not the welcome news page) should be made available to everyone. It is annoying, to say the least. I agree with Suzanne; I HATE the news headlines as well. When I click on my e-mail link, I want to see my inbox!
January 4th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
hayyyyyyyyyy i lov yuo
December 21st, 2008 at 10:46 am
How do we get rid of the news features in our inbox ? I can’t stand it and it’s one more reason to leave Yahoo. I’m trying to find a way to saty but everyday there’s another issue before the original ones are worked out.
Do you know how to rid of the news displaying? I would love to know.
October 26th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I think to say no one used the rss feed in yahoo mail is BS. One of the few yahoo advantages yahoo mail had over gmail was an integrated rss reader. I know many gmailers are still wishing for this feature.
It all comes down to resources. Yahoo can’t afford the manpower to upkeep the RSS. Which is poor timing. Since Yahoo’s new Calendar, I was looking for them to be a one stop shop solution, including integrated RSS.
Oh well, tragic.
P.S. MyYahoo is horrible, left that years ago.
P.P.S Calendar needs to be integrated into Yahoo Mail as a tab like how contacts are.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Heffer,
I never said no one used it. What I said, and what is the statistical truth, is that overall usage was very low. I understand people want to claim it’s “BS”, but it’s absurd to suggest that we are deliberately killing off popular features just to make people upset.
I’ll be happy to relay any suggestions/requests to the MyY team.
-Ryan
October 26th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
ryan – I’d suggest you look at heavy user usage (the ones who drive all the page views) before you make a final call on this
October 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Ryan–
I think you’ve gotten lots of suggestions/requests right here about the RSS feeds in Y!Mail. Even if it wasn’t being heavily used (although I’d be curious what that was based on since it appears to many of us who have commented that it is going to be missed), I think this decision needs to be reconsidered.
Also, the fact that the only way this information is being communicated out to users is if the happen to read your blog is another sign that it’s not being handled well at all.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:44 am
And Ryan, you never addressed why it *has* to leave Y!Mail. Fine, so every single user isn’t using it. How many people are honestly using that awful calendar and notepad? Why can’t it just… stay where it is? Is that really such an issue? For it to exist in both places, like it has for a while now?
October 27th, 2008 at 11:04 am
HI S,
It’s not like it was 51/49 and we are cutting it. The overwhelming majority of users not only never use it, they’ve never really given it a shot. It’s simply not resonating with the the majority of users.
I understand why a person who has come to love the feature would find that hard to believe, but it’s true.
It’s also not as simple as just “leaving it there” because everything has to work together. So while it may appear on the outside that we are just dropping in new features here and there, everything has to get along together.
-Ryan
October 27th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Ryan – I know you are just the messenger and appreciate that you are toeing the company line, but this was one of the features that made Yahoo Mail special.
Why not make this Mail Plus only feature and at least give folks a choice?
October 28th, 2008 at 12:22 am
@Oddpost Vet
Because the problem is maintenance of the feature, and keeping it bug-free. Whether it is provided to all users Plus users, or just 15 users, it still requires the same recourses to test and maintain it.
I disagree with the decision, however My Y! really isn’t bad. Its a new redesigned one, as opposed to the pre-Y!Mail Beta version, and has a spiffy look and functionality.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Hi Oddpost vet,
As crazy as it sounds I’m not just out here toeing the line. While it made Yahoo! Mail different from other providers it simply wasn’t very popular (and required a lot of maintenance). We’ve decided to focus our efforts on things that benefit the most users.
That being said, I believe that the real solution lies down the road as we progress into the type of open Mail system that Jerry presented earlier this year. Where developers can create applications that users can have the option of incorporating into their Mail, and better tailor their own experience.
Piling more and more features onto the underlying infrastructure, even if those features are seldom used, doesn’t make sense for the larger community of Mail users.
-Ryan
October 30th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
All fair and rationale points, but building for the mainstream great products
October 26th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
[...] Source: Blogue de Yahoo Mail [...]
October 26th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Bad call – integrated feeds is a big reason why I have kept Yahoo as my primary mail account.
Pretty strange that the community was even asked before the decision was made . . . .
October 27th, 2008 at 2:15 am
I will certainly not read this blog anymore, but it was nice having it inside the mailbox… Anyway, wrong call from Yahoo!
October 27th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
There are a lot of ways to access outside of that Feeds area. All you have to do is click the RSS link a the top and you will get a whole bunch of options to subscribe (even email).
-Ryan
October 27th, 2008 at 5:59 am
This is sad. Although I was not reading my feeds within Yahoo! Mail anymore (moved to Google Reader because it was faster) I was really hopping for a revamp. It would be great to have all your e-mails and all your feeds in just one place. The service as it is today sucks, but that’s no excuse to end it, but to change it, improve it. And it looks like I’m not the only one here..
Bad news from Yahoo!. Do you want to loose in the webmail market as well?
Giazzon.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:14 am
I used the Feeds feature in Yahoo Mail. I agree with most of the comments posted about using it in Mail vs. My Yahoo. It is much easier to use in Mail. Is there a way to export the feeds from Yahoo to OPML so I can at least import them to something else? I was happy that the new Calendar was going to support iCalendar, but now the removal of the feeds from Mail has neutralized some of that.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Ugh, this was the main feature that made me switch to the “new” yahoo mail so long ago! Now it’s gone? I haven’t used my MyYahoo page in who-knows-how-long because I don’t want or need to…so much for the usefulness of the Yahoo Mail interface….you’re relegating it to be just another mail service….
October 27th, 2008 at 7:18 am
I’m terribly disappointed. I love the streamlined RSS feed reader in my email box, and it makes my day a lot easier. I hate the feed structure in My Yahoo – its interface is unattractive, clunky to use, and slows down my ability to quickly skim through the actual text of an article without having to visit a dozen websites in separate tabs. If this move is to attempt to drive traffic to My Yahoo, well, it’s going to have the opposite effect on me – I’m going to take my RSS reading elsewhere.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:43 am
NOOOO. Please keep feeds in the inbox. I hate the my yahoo page. It is the feature I use the most besides my actual inbox for composing and receiving messages. Please keep RSS feeds in the inbox!!!.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:37 am
i use the rss feeds in the new yahoo mail when they work. they regularly don’t.
i think this is more of a “we can’t get it to work” than a “you people don’t use this feature”.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
w,
Believe me, if this was a wildly popular feature we would find a way to make it work. Unfortunately it was a complicated addition that required a lot of work to maintain, despite not being very popular.
-Ryan
October 28th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Ryan,
how many angry blog comments does it take to make an application widely popular? to that point, how many posts does it take to make this decision widely unpopular?
did i read a hint towards open sourcing mail that would allow someone else to develop this app anew?
steve
October 28th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Steve,
I understand why it may look here like there is a groundswell of support for the product, but the % was small. It’s like Spock said in Wrath of Kahn…the good of the many outweigh the good of the few. I promise I’m not trying to mock your frustration, but it’s the one quote that keeps springing to mind.
And you did read a hint but it’s a question of how soon things develop. There’s been a lot of coverage on TechCrunch, and there was a post earlier today on Yodel, that gives more detail on our Open Social strategy.
Initially the developer community will be limited but I’m making sure that our Open Mail leads are aware of some of the recent changes that were unpopular with subsets of users…and could be solved with an application. Unfortunately it won’t be an option right away, but I think it will be here before we know it.
-Ryan
October 27th, 2008 at 9:18 am
I initially used the RSS reader integrated into the mail system, but quickly outgrew the space for as many feeds as I have. The tabbed and flexible structure of My Yahoo is a much better solution. I’m surprised to see so many people against the idea of dropping this feature to focus on larger issues.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:29 am
While the RSS feed in YMail wasn’t perfect it was nice in that I had easy access to it and I actually remembered to check it. I can’t say that about Google Reader. As for the My Yahoo option, that’s horrific. The entire My Yahoo idea should be deleted.
Oh well … it was nice while it lasted.
Now maybe they will have time to set up YMail so I can forward mail AND keep a local copy. :-)
October 27th, 2008 at 9:48 am
The new yahoo mail loads too slow on my computer. I still use dial-up. At work, our internet connection is also very slow. I am using the old email format. I hope they never disconn\tinue it.
I have the same problem with the my.yahoo page. It loads too slow. For years, since ‘96, my.yahoo was my home page. NO more, I now have Google as my home page. Googe loads instancely.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Hi Ryan,
I don’t aggree with the decision to completely remove RSS from Y! Mail. What should happen is once a non-beta release of calendar and notepad come out, you should work on re-integrating RSS feeds back into mail. You should make the feeds section work more like contacts. You click on RSS feed link and it opens a list of the feeds you subscribe in a column on the left then in the column to the right the list of articles within each feed. This would leave more space in the left most column of Y! Mail while still allowing to maintain the existing functionality of the RSS reader with in Y! Mail.
Please consider this option. I like the RSS integration with Y! Mail and I think a lot of other people do too. Maybe the use of this feature is low because it wasn’t integrated in the best way.
I love what you are doing with Y!calendar and Y!note pad and can’t wait for the full upgrade!
-Tripp-
October 27th, 2008 at 11:21 am
The best upgrade to yahoo mail has been the addition of rss feed. Even though I like some of the other new features they do not compare to the ease of being able to read my feeds on the same page as my emails and then the option of sharing with my email contacts from there.
I know a lot of people do like the “My Yahoo” pages but I personally find it cluttered, ugly, and extreme waste of time. I only have a few feeds I am interested in reading as I only have a limited amount of time in a day. Instead of switching to “My Yahoo” I will instead focus on finding a new email client that has this feature.
I am very disappointed. At the very least something should have been done to allow those of us who really like this feature the option of keeping it even if it meant no more work would be done to improve it.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I just transfered all of my rss feeds to the google reader. It does not look too bad. The page is not cluttered and it was very easy to add new feeds. It is pretty simple to go from gmail to the feeder too, which is nice, and the layout is still very similar to the current rss feed in yahoo mail.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
I’m wondering if the RSS feed is the cause of some of the email problems people are having. I’m not having any problems, but many are. Slow emails, unresponsive email, unable to send or receive, etc.
Is the New Email being overtaxed? Just curious, as I can find no other answer to tell people who ask.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
There is a My Yahoo? Seriously – I have to agree with everyone here. My Yahoo is not the answer. I am on Ymail all day – not My Yahoo. I like the feeds where they are!
October 27th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I think it’s a good call, I never used RSS feeds on my yahoo mail; I’m a huge fan of yahoo mail, and use it heavily. Thanks for focusing on the important stuff.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Lou,
Thanks for the feedback!
-Ryan
October 27th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
This is a little sad.
the feeds are a convenience that I enjoy. I like being able to see that a site I request has updates instead of having to bomb back to it.
The MyYahoo page is just too clunky and poorly designed. if the myyahoo page was better I’d go for this idea but it’s not.
Ohh well all good things come to an end.
If only Yahoo Mail accepted Widgets or something like that maybe I could get to keep something like the feeds in it still.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
That’s bad news. I used that feature all the time. A step backward for Yahoo! Mail.
I just hope this is not an attempt to lure people into using My Yahoo!, because for sure I won’t, I don’t like it at all.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Removing RSS from Y!Mail is like removing Firewire from the new Macbooks–most people won’t miss it or notice it’s gone, but the small minority that do will go postal.
I have both a Gmail account (campus) and Yahoo account, so I’m not a total novice about either service. I used the RSS in Y!Mail for a very, very short time b/c I have so many folders in my mailbox that it took up more screen real estate than I wanted it to. Handy? yes. For me? no.
On the other hand, I have been actively using my.yahoo.com for the past few days and I have to say I really like the customization it offers over iGoogle so I switched.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Ryan,
I’m a relatively new user and I’m sorry to admit that it was only after learning that RSS was being discontinued that I tried it! I like the feature and would continue to use it should you reconsider removing it…
October 28th, 2008 at 7:02 am
I really dislike this action; one of the original reasons I stuck with “the New Yahoo! Mail Beta” was because of the integrated feed reader.
Mail and Feeds correlate directly, they are both news and information, etc that I subscribe to and use to keep informed (I only found out about this because of the feed reader).
RSS feeds are not going away and if anything they will just become more prominent. If a majority of users are not using the feature, then maybe the feature needs to be improved?
Regardless, the feed reader is a feature that I love using (despite its lack to accept some of the feeds I ask to view) and that I much prefer over gmail’s webclips.
I find that MyYahoo! and iGoogle are both too clunky to use and kind-of upset to have to go back to Google Reader just to read my feeds (just another service to sign-in to everyday, however I do have to say I enjoy how google reader loads quicker and scrolls smoother, probably because it is not trying to refresh an advertisement between every article -_-).
One thing I wanted to know is why the calendar, or at the very least notepad, does not open inside the Yahoo! Mail window… sure, calendar is large and complicated.. but notepad? I always email myself little notes, or save them as drafts, it seems like a good idea to have better integration between the mail window and notepad (or maybe just cut-it since not THAT many people probably really use it >.>)
I hope cutting features and disintegration between products will not be a trend that starts in Yahoo! products. Having the feed reader and calendar bar (have yet to miss a bday this year! thank you!!) is what separated Yahoo! Mail from the rest and I hope the tend of integration and innovation is not coming to an end.
I have a long long history with Yahoo! Mail (back to 7th grade in Middle School when Yahoo gave so much more space than Hotmail, 4MB was HUGE! Why would you ever need that much! ^_^) and I love the Yahoo! products!
My expectations for Yahoo have always been high (which is why I didn’t jump on the gmail bandwagon), so keep up the good work (and don’t cut new features)!
October 31st, 2008 at 9:58 am
Hi Milan,
I can assure you that we are not interested in stripping a ton of features out of the Mail experience. This is a unique case because it was a complicated feature to maintain, but never really took off with the users. We will continue to iterate on existing features, as well as add new ones.
Thanks for sticking with us for so long!
-Ryan
October 28th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I would be willing to bet that the reason so few people used the RSS feature was because they didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand what it was, or how to use it. I still think its no reason to take a feature a way, but rather an opportunity to educate users on what they could get out of it if they only knew what it was for and what it could do for them!
October 28th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Its most unfortunate to see the functionality removed! I, for one, used it extensively and checked it almost every day or, everytime I checked Yahoo Mail.
INHO, lot of Yahoo Mail users are just not aware of the RSS feature or how they could benefit from it. On Yahoo’s part, I havne’t much marketing of this feature….and but of course you will see little usage.
Am a bit disappointed to see Yahoo Mail features being cut down…..its just adding to the reasons to re-consider an offline email client to access Yahoo Mail :(
- S.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I really liked the RSS feed reader in the inbox. It was making me reevaluate my decision to move to google mail/reader/etc. Oh well.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I hate all automated content in my Inbox that I did not ask for and I did not want. Get your *&%$#@# news clippings out of my Inbox. I want to see my EMAIL. If I want to see RSS feeds, I’ll go to news.yahoo.com or whatever. Stop torturing me with news and information I dont want to see.
Yahoo is trying to be just like George Orwell’s 1984. Everybody gets a TV and it’s against the law to turn it off. Only its 2008, and RSS newsfeeds are in my face, and I can’t shut them off.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:54 am
JV,
Not quite sure what you are trying to say here. We don’t force feeds on anyone. The Feeds feature being discussed here never automatically pushed information on people, and MyY is an entirely optional interface.
-Ryan
October 28th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
The new yahoo is great and all but i hate the advertisements at the side its getting very annoying. if the new yahoo every goes i’ll be pissed.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
i’m with everyone else here, it was really convenient having that rss feed along with my inbox. i was able to access the feeds no matter which computer i used. the rss feeds in yahoo mail was basically like my morning paper. i hope they decide to keep it on after all…
October 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Ryan,
I have to agree here – Yahoo is just the platform I use to get a forwarding adress and the only reason I’ve stayed is because I love the RSS feature – Can we have it stay for premium users?
Reality is that unless there is a way to get the RSS back as a feature in my inbox I am going to drop my Yahoo mail premium account.
Can someone tell me if there is a good way to migrate to Gmail?
Thanks
October 29th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Can’t say anything for the e-mail, but you can export your calendar and address books from the options menus.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
the worst thing about the feeds in MyYahoo is that they don’t open in a new window causing me to constantly have to go back to my page. At least in all Feeds in yahoo mail opened in a new browser. I too will miss it and am checking out Google.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:52 am
Heather,
I’ll relay that feedback to the MyY team, but in many cases it stems from the way the publisher sends their feed. Most RSS feeds will open in MyY’s integrated reader window, but some still open in the same window.
As an extremely active MyY user myself (since long before working here) I’m very comfortable with the headline aggregation, feel I couldn’t live without some of the non-RSS related modules, and usually know which of my feeds will trigger the integrated reader…or open a new page. When I am clicking on a feed that doesn’t trigger the reader (again, this is based on how the publisher builds the feed) I right click instead and open in a new tab.
-Ryan
October 29th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
I’m afraid Googling is looking good to me too! Especially since, when I signed in today, Yahoo didn’t even recognize me as a user, although it knew my name, it wanted me to upgrade to the plan I am already upgraded to. Not a new problem. So, to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, I’m just Googling on down the road too.
October 30th, 2008 at 4:23 am
Please, don’t get rid of feeds in mail. I LOVE this feature and use it all the time. PLEASE!!!
October 30th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
You have to be kidding. What a lame decision to get rid of one of the few differentiating features of Yahoo Mail. Ryan – I hope the “decision-makers” are reading these comments … talk about the best way to start a negative word-of-mouth.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:48 am
jamie,
Many members of the Mail team regularly read the blog comments, and I also summarized feedback and raise issues with them directly.
-Ryan
October 31st, 2008 at 6:17 am
The My Yahoo page completely stinks for reading RSS feeds. I almost never comment, but I find this change really annoying and it has prompted me to comment. Why get rid of a good thing? Reading RSS feeds while in my mail was perfect. I am a paying Yahoo Mail customer and I would have at least liked to have the choice of where I would like to read my RSS feeds from. Well, if Google can do this better, this might make me change my main mail accounts to Google… This was a bad idea Yahoo…
October 31st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
This is the first time I bother to post something on the Internet publicly. “RSS reader in Mail” was something that was well implemented and integrated with Yahoo Mail. This will cut down the time that I spend on Yahoo pages. I wish the decision can be reversed soon.
November 2nd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
There are many things that are leaving Yahoo… I loved Yahoo Music and was a subscriber, Rhapsody just doesn’t cut it. Do you think that phasing out the goodies will keep the mergers at bay? It might but you won’t have any customers either.
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Yahoo feed reader was one of the more convenient readers out there. Granted that I hated that Yahoo took it upon itself to inject feeds into it that I couldn’t care less about…hello…hip hop music lists from Yahoo Music’s thingie…but still.
I like being about to view my fantasy teams, the latest news, and never leave my inbox.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:34 am
RYAN, BUDDY! FROM WHAT I’VE BEEN READING YOU SURE DON’T SOUND LIKE THE MOST POPULAR GUY ON CAMPUS TODAY! SURE SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE FIXING SOMETHING THATS NOT BROKE, FOR PEOPLE THAT DON’T USE IT! “MYSELF” IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED. I’M GOING TO MISS “YAHOO!”
November 4th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Never used the feeds in Yahoo Mail — good call to get rid of them! I’m sure I’m with 99% of people who use Yahoo Mail. (The 1% have written the complaints above.)
November 5th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Ryan,
Of course overall usage was very low, don’t you know that only 11% of web users have adopted RSS feeds? (Forrester).
An overwhelming majority of web users don’t know RSS. How can you expect a large adoption of the feeds in YM?
It takes time to evangelize new technologies. If the most popular email service worldwide removes rss feeds, RSS education is over.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I enjoyed the rss feeds.
OK, back to iMail feeds…
November 5th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
please bring RSS back to the inbox. I used it every single day…. now its gone I’ll start using a service from a different provider (not yahoo)… please, please bring it back. you don’t need to change it or improve it (it worked perfectly before) – just please bring it back.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
I think I just learned why the RSS feeds were dropped from the inbox. Yahoo needed the bandwidth so they could force ridiculous advertisements onto their users. It doesn’t matter that some of us pay high monthly fees to get DSL service which included Yahoo Mail. Now we have advertisements forced upon us instead of useful features.
November 6th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Hi Ryan… I have a lot of respect for how you are answering these questions and being in the software business myself I understand these are hard decisions. However, I must say that I loved getting RSS feeds in my Yahoo Mail and saw it as a key differentiator to your service. I have searched and searched and searched for a good RSS reader since the standard came out and think that the RSS reader in Yahoo mail blows the competition out of the water. It is the only reason I keep Gmail as my spam account, and Yahoo for my primary email.
I respect your decision, but add me to the list of people that don’t want a me-too Yahoo Mail service. On the plus side, productivity at work will go up as I don’t read my RSS feeds any longer.
Thanks!
November 6th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
How about adding a “favorite Folders” Feature like in Microsoft Outlook..??
November 7th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Ouch! Too bad, I used the All Feeds feature daily because it was basic, simple and fast even if it sometimes had a mind of its own. I had almost forgotten about My Yahoo until I saw the feed notice today. Took a look… Bleh! I’ll figure something else out, thank you.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I never use to read RSS feeds before this feature. After adding a few feeds I was hooked. Read them every morning because it was uber-convenient. Now the convenience is gone. I visit my My Yahoo page once or twice a year. Moving my feeds there will not change that. Very sad.
November 8th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Ryan,
I don’t agree at all with your decision… If the RSS stay in My Yahoo (just ugly), I certainly go elsewhere watch them… And I’ll spend much less time on my Yahoo Mail.
If I read you, only a minority of Yahoo Mail users use RSS… But what’s the problem for the no-users of RSS if there’s RSS on their mail ? It don’t slow down the Yahoo Mail !
Excuse me for my poor english, I’ve not been studying it for 10 years… Is there the same blog in french ?
David
November 10th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Thank you Ryan for your post. I’m really, really sad to see the RSS feed disappear. I’m not a fan of the MyYahoo page, so this is no solution for me. Please re-activate the feeds. PLEASE! All what you have to to is just to press the back button…
- Michael
(A disappointed fan of YMail)
November 12th, 2008 at 5:17 am
This is awful – the new MyYahoo is frustrating, slow, and does not render well in smaller screen formats (totally unusable on my NokiaN800).
I prefer to have my RSS feed in my inbox as well – now each feed being a separate panel makes my MyYahoo page even more unweildy.
I was an early adopter of Yahoo Mail, and it is my primary mail client… I use it all day, every day. I use the MyYahoo portal about 1x per quarter – it’s just that painful.
If you’re trying to push your userbase to iGoogle, you’re taking all the right steps.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Please give me my rss back. I just started using it.
November 15th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Hi
November 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
I’m bummed that Yahoo has let me down by moving the feeds out of my inbox. It was so progressive that the feeds were in there….and to remove them was a huge mistake on their part. I’m not sure why they keep pushing the “My Yahoo” page (more advertisement dollars??) but it creates an extra step in an era where people are looking for shortcuts. Yahoo needs to listen to their users and brand advocates, admit they made a mistake, and come back to us with a system that works….and we’ll come back. If they don’t, they’ll lose subscribers.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:12 am
hi i feel the same way Jileen
November 19th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I didn’t use it much because it didn’t work well. I couldn’t always add feeds (some worked, some didn’t). If it worked well, I would certainly have used it MUCH more. Please consider fixing it and bringing it back. My Yahoo is waaay to busy and ad filled, and just generally not useful.
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Hi Yahoo Mail Team,
As a premium paying Yahoo Mail user for many years I’m incredibly disheartened by your choice to remove feeds from Yahoo Mail.
I actually thought that this was a visionary, “pre-Outlook integration” step — give users their content where they want it most.
If I wanted an RSS feed ‘favorites’ page, I’d use my iGoogle page. Sorry guys, but let’s be realistic — I am a Google search user — like most of the planet. But that was the brilliance of RSS in YMail — it branded my email usage (the single most important Internet experience I have) as a Yahoo experience. Not a Google one.
Moving the RSS feeds to MyYahoo misses the point — I shouldn’t have to consume RSS content on a separate web page, I should have the ability to consume it as I read and manage my email. I also loved the feature that I could go 2 weeks and not check my RSS feeds, but knew that it would tell me what was recently viewed vs. what was new. I no longer have the ability to do this as the integration with MyYahoo doesn’t offer this function.
Bottom line, since my RSS feeds were deactivated in YMail, I have done my best to rearrange them in MyYahoo and have given it an honest try. Some stats:
– Over the last 3 weeks I have checked my RSS feeds once, I have fallen out of touch with the websites that matter most to be
– I used to check RSS feeds daily — didn’t read them all, but checked daily
Since I use iGoogle as my default search, I will probably decide to move my RSS feeds (over 30-40) to iGoogle. As I continue to rely on iGoogle as my information hub, I will probably tend to start using my Gmail account more frequently and before I know it, will no longer have a reason to use my YMail. As a premium YMail user I’m bummed about this transition and will probably revert back to the free service at some point since I won’t have a real need to make this my central communications hub.
Interesting that Yahoo Mail Beta lead the charge at taking webmail and turning it into my “Outlook on the Web.” Now it appears that it’s just another mail service among a crowded pack.
I understand the business reasons – get people using MyYahoo more frequently – up traffic and conversion. But here was a leading product – and you just removed one of its central features that made it stand out.
Hope this rant makes it to someone who cares.
-Shawn
November 24th, 2008 at 3:05 am
If you are looking for some yahoo support, I found this site on Digg, they have a lot of Yahoo solutions and tricks.
Quite cool how they gathered so much info about Ymail at one place.
http://www.fixya.com/support/p954496-yahoo_mail
November 25th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Is it time to update the spell check to include words like our incomming
president and other new words people will be using at times? Can the
spell check be set with a storage for words people add or use often?
December 1st, 2008 at 10:52 am
Why isn’t there a cursor in the ‘Subject” line of New Yahoo Mail? My cursor shows-up everywhere else when I’m writing an email, but in the Subject line, it disappears!
December 5th, 2008 at 11:53 am
This is really badly handled. I admit i’m an infrequent user of the RSS reader – which is confirmed by me only just seeing the message today – but it make sense to keep this feature next to my mail. I list it as (one of the) key reason for my switch from Gmail to Ymail 6months ago.
What i’m most appalled about is how little you seem to want to hear that people want you to keep the feature – even if it means performing no product development on it. I clicked on the find out more link and saw the yahoo help page. This said you welcome my feedback even if it’s that I want to keep the RSS reader, and that you’re listening…. oh look no link to provide feedback. Check back in ymail – hmm no link for feedback is all that apparent. Eventually, because i’m really frutstrated now, i stumble on this blog and yes, 27 clicks later i’m giving my -1 vote on this idea.
Guys, listen to the minority… how many of them are talking about going straight to Google to use a product which requires a user id. When they have that they will start building a pretty rapid switching cost and may well never come back. You had such a switching cost with everyone in the comments here and threw it away.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I have been mourning the loss of my RSS feeds, and just now found a place to complain about it!
I really loved having it integrated with my mail. That’s where I spend the majority of my time. It was so simple to just click on my feeds, see the new articles, and then get back to email.
I wish you would reconsider this. I too am a long-time paying customer of Yahoo mail. I left for Oddpost, which Yahoo bought and turned into an ok (although not as good as the original oddpost) email experience. So I’ve been back for a few years and mostly satisfied. However, losing RSS feeds will make me reconsider continuing my subscription to Yahoo Mail.