There’s some big news that has a “connection” to your Mail experience. If you checked your profile over the weekend, you may have noticed things look a little different. Last Thursday we rolled out an all-new profile for Yahoo! users, geared towards a more “open and social” Yahoo!.
The update includes a sneak peek of what your Address Book/Contacts experience will be like down the road, which is something Mail users should be interested especially in. There’s also an important change for users who have created an alias for their account, so if that’s you make sure you read on.
To get started, you’ll need to go to: http://profiles.yahoo.com/ to begin setting up your new profile. When you log in, it should automatically pull in your old profile data, and will give you the opportunity to update your information.
The new profile provides users with a single identity while they’re on the Yahoo! network, consolidating your aliases into one account with your main profile. This doesn’t, however, mean that you can’t still have an “alias” while you’re on the Yahoo! network – you can still use multiple identities on Groups, Chat, or Finance. However, these aliases CANNOT have their own profile page, nor can they have any unique profile data associated with them.
To learn more about editing and managing your new profile on Yahoo!, be sure to visit the profiles news blog for more information, as well as tips on how to manage your aliases and profiles within the network.
Additionally, if you want more information on how to use your profile, start with the new profiles tutorial, located here: http://help.yahoo.com/tutorials/prof/index.html
Tags: address book, contacts, mail, profiles, yahoo
Thanks for responding and clearing things up, Ryan. I appreciate it. I was a little freaked out when I clicked on the profile link and saw that things were now public (or so I thought).
Things are changing fast in the Yahoo! world. :)
The updated on the Yahoo Profile are quiet welcoem but would like to see more in it as in maybe some photo albums integrated so you can share photos with your connections…or with all viewers of the profile….Thats would really be the hit to have album photos integrated in it.
I have recently upgraded my Messenger in hopes of resolving a message stating “Your profile was deactivated by an administrator” but the upgrade did not resolve the issue. Does anyone know what do I need to do to get this problem taken care of and get my profile re-activated?
RYAN, RYAN, RYAN. Thank you so much for the up-date. My 3rd computer crashed in Sept. of 2007. I gave up changing hard drives. Good Grief, could drive a girl insane. This is my first lap-top and I thought I forgot everything I used to know!!
I thought I was going cross-eyed and tongue-tied trying to figure out (in-safe mode of course), what the heck I did wrong to screw up my mail and Yahoo homepage.
Glad to know I am not a mental midget after all.
Thank you for the up-date, hmmmmmmm, now if I can find my jewelers kit, I can take this apart and find where the battery goes on the mother-board. It better be next to the PLCC……….
Nabz needs a nap, cranky…..
Ryan,
My “All Feeds” (RSS) quit working on new Y!Mail. When I contacted customer support, they are telling me that it is no longer a feature and has been disabled. Did I miss the announcement? Here is his email:
===================
Hello Dan,
Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Mail Premium Customer Care. We
appreciate your being a Premium User and we are committed to providing
you with excellent service.
I’m sorry, but as was indicated in the previous email, the RSS feature
is no longer available. I apologize for any inconvenience caused. Please
review the previous email we provided you for further details.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Mail Premium Customer Care. Did
you know as a Premium User you can chat live with us for support?
Please visit us at:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/forms_index.html
Regards,
Ralph
Yahoo! Customer Care
Hi Roach,
Users can still update their profiles to reflect their age, so you should still be able to deny them until they provide it.
We are not making users “pool” their profiles into a single place. That is totally optional. We are however asking users that need to maintain more than one detailed identity online, that they register for an additional account.
With regard to our reasoning (and because many commenters insist it’s for no purpose), I’ll reiterate that we had learned from many people that it was overwhelming to try and manage their various settings and experiences across all of the different areas of the Yahoo! network.
As Jerry outlined during CES almost a year ago, we are trying to move to a more open and social version of Yahoo! It’s not a social network, but rather making all of the things that you already do on Yahoo! (mail, messenger, fantasy sports, groups, finance, answers, etc) more social and relevant.
Sorry to hear about the email switch, but I respect that users need to choose what is best for their needs. However, since you are no longer a Mail user I am going to urge you to hit up the Groups and Profiles News blogs, since they will be far better equipped to answer those questions. I promise I’m not trying to brush you off, just think that once you cut Mail out of the question they will be better equipped.
http://www.ygroupsblog.com
http://www.yprofileblog.com
-Ryan
Tyg & Mel,
Until you migrate to the new version the profile shouldn’t reveal any of your info, and even once you have input the details only people you have deliberately “connected” to will be able to see anymore than your display name and A/S/L (if you specified them).
I fear there is confusion because what a user sees on their profile page (when signed in) is significantly different than what another user would see on the page (quite sparse).
-Ryan
Hi Micheline,
This has been a point of confusion for a lot of people, and we are working on communicating it. By default your name isn’t displayed to anyone. All that a user sees is your display name, which doesn’t have to relate to your real name at all. Your full name is only visible to people you have “connected” with (meaning you have invited them or they have invited you, to connect).
Also, I’m not sure what you mean by “the front page”. Do you mean Yahoo.com or MyYahoo?
-Ryan
We’ve heard that some users’ content didn’t migrate correctly, but if you contact Customer Care they can access the data and provide it. The form to submit a request can be found here:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
-Ryan
John & Zorro,
As I’ve described before, there was a bug associated with Flash that for most people could be easily resolved by updating to the latest Flash version. If you have done that and are still experiencing a problem with Chat (in Mail) please drop me a line so I can let our product people know.
-Ryan
Oh… for… crying… out loud :-( Why can’t Yahoo leave well enough alone?! I hate these changes. I really do. One friend spent 2 hours trying to figure it out, and he waqs frustrated to the point of giving up altogether. I donlt blame him. Btw-, when one teies to check the age of a new member trying to enter an adult-content Y! group, you can’t see it!!! You don’t know if you’re approving a membership for a child, or an adult proclaiming their age to gain group membership approval. I use that function all the time, and now… group owners have no age declaration to go by :-( And that… I think, is patently stupid. So, if I don’t see a posted adult age, I will just deny all memberships not showing one. Oh well :-( Can’t take a chance on allowing applicants being below an adult age for membership approval. Some things kids just shouldn’t be permitted to see. Thanx Yahoo… for messing things up- again. Gawd :-(
That’s a good point, John. I haven’t been able to use the chat feature within my Yahoo Mail account for 3 days now. Why doesn’t Ryan give us some updates on THAT issue?
When Yahoo can’t even make simple features like Chat compatible with current versions of Flash…and their Phone Out service can’t recognize “new” U.S. area codes that have been in place more than 13 months…why would they continue to pour resources and energy into other innovations BEFORE fixing their more immediate problems?
I’d agree with the notion people are overwhelmed with too many IDs, and I am glad to see Yahoo addressing that, however, many Yahoo users are furious about *how* exactly Yahoo went about this. Please help Y-Mail users who lost profile info get timely satisifaction where you can. That seems to be the biggie for most people. Its been causing a lot of fuss, from what I’ve seen, and seems like a black eye from this users perspective. It wasn’t onboarded very well.
I will say one thing to you though, Ryan:
THANKS! Thanks to your video on this subject awhile back, I got the heads up this was on the way. Not that I really use profiles, but still, it forestalled a lot of the “WTF” factor that seems to be happening for a lot of users.
Cheers.
The old profle was very easy to use and logically laid out. The new one is a mess and I lost most of my old profile info. Why did you have to mess with a good simple profile?
Try using your last initial for your last name, Micheline.
I am completely in agreement with you about being careful with personal information.
Tyg, I have to say that my reaction to finding that the default profile was public was similar to yours. Some notification of the change would have seemed sensible, as it is essentially a change in privacy policy. Had I not made a conscious decision to come to this blog and subsequently click on the profile link, I would never have known that my private information is now public. Until this change, I have always kept my account/profile details private. Not everyone thinks social networking is a great thing.
The current profile defaults should be private, particularly if that’s the setting that users utilized prior to this nifty profile “improvement.” If users want to change their profiles to permit public viewing, they are fully capable of doing so.
Just a curious question. Lately, Yahoo! has shown off it’s true colors, and has advertised going purple. Well, I have seen the purple Yahoo! logo.. but why when certain products get updated that the logo stays red? You’d think that once something new rolls out, the logo would be purple and not red. So is Yahoo red or purple??
This “NEW” and improved version is TERRIBLE to say the least…you HAVE to use your last name on your profile…If I had wanted someone to see that,,,I would have given them it…but since you never know who’s, who out here, I DON’T want it given out to everyone, but the “NEW” profile doesn’t give you that option…I am REALLY getting tired of Yahoo changing so much without ASKING US-I’m one of the the ones who PAY for Yahoo services…and the new profile pages look generic, who’s designing all of this “NEW” stuff already??? They changed my Yahoo front page to their “NEW” look, and I can’t stand it, it takes too long now to go thru stuff that only would have taken me mere minutes to go thru before, and when I asked for my old front page, they can’t give it back??? What the heck is that? So now, I don’t even go to the Yahoo front page anymore…if that’s what they are going for…they got it!!! Pretty soon they will be finding out, that they are going to lose a LOT of people because they keep changing things for the worse…NOT the better…
It looks like Facebook’s pages, doesn’t it?
what is going on with rocketmail?
i have not been able to access my account since 6am this morning, and it is now 11pm. i have time sensitive/critical job search information, and interview invites that i need to respond!!! i can’t even get into the account to look at older emails. so much for paying premium for the accounts.
widgets.yahoo.com. yahoo widgets gives you the ability to add a plethora of stock tools to your desktop, and you can keep one on top. yahoo widgets even comes with a stock ticker i believe.
Hi Ryan,
Wanted to see if you wanted to grab lunch some time. I’m doing some marketing and community development for Mozilla Messaging/Mozilla Thunderbird and it would be great to work together on some things. (sorry to do the intro this way…).
-Rafael
Apologies for an off topic question in this post but… conveniently today you implemented new software and layoffs of 1400- may I ask which sectors are affected and when we can expect a blog post on that? and where?
I lost my original sentimental/ tribute profile as well. Dissappointed is an understatement. Like you & I, I’m sure there are many others some which may not even know it yet 4 whatever reason.
Thought I could edit. Anyway, maybe it wasn’t a crappy spam filter. Maybe I didn’t filter each spam addy, but welcome a much needed solution for my other concerns.
Profiles:
As an owner & moderator of several different groups (some not suitable for young viewers), I used the great old style profiles to age, how long that profile has been a member, etc. I try to keep my groups & their members very secure. If I had the slightest doubt of an applicant, I either banned them or denied them w/ an automated document w/ screen shots on how to update their profiles. Since the change over, I lost all info on my profiles 1 which was important to me! Note: I say “mine” even though it is Yahoo property.
How can I now screen my groups’ applicants??? Find me a simple work around & I’ll be cool. If I understand correctly, applicants would have to “pool” their information into one profile & use that primary profile to apply to different groups. Kind of gives your anonymity away!
I created my last Y acct in 01’ that I keep active for certain groups & a sincere sentimental value. I don’t have my full name, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to find me by profile title alone…especially now days. I realized that soon after. I created another profile & email addy on the same acct then dedicated it as my default for different. I had the best of both worlds. I wouldn’t want anyone to associate my 2 profiles as one person!
I know this is all freeware, however this decision isn’t based on reducing server size, etc as HD space is getting cheaper everyday. Seems like their try to create a form of that “Grouply” / My Space crap!
Email:
Had 2 switch to the ease & quickness of g-mail! I surveyed & wrote Yahoo way back when they made the initial classic change. No reply & same dragging email w/ a crappy spam filter.
Please respond w/ a solution!
aahaha
Hi joe,
We’ve got people working on that, but you can also submit a request on this form.
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
-Ryan
You aren’t required network or connect with anyone. We repeatedly found that many users were totally overwhelmed by the disparate profile experiences across our different products, and this is intended to give users a chance to greatly simplify that.
We’ve passed along the feedback about “member since” so be sure to keep an eye on the Groups (www.ygroupsblog.com) or Profiles News (www.yprofileblog.com) blogs.
-Ryan
only reason im here reading bout this new profile stuff is because i had written a profile (i was pretty proud of it too, never did figure out how to sepearate it into paragraphs) and now the profile is gone. wow! that was a downer. can you tell me how i can get that info back. sorry i never saved it.
All I get is the “Your profile was deactivated by an administrator.” screen. How do I get past that to use the new profile?
FINALLY, someone replying to the Profiles blog actually talking about the Profiles.
I HATE the change. If I want to social network, I’ll join one of the plethora of social networking sites already available. Not all of us want everyone to be our “friend”. I use Yahoo for mail and the groups, and that’s about it.
As a group moderator, I used the profiles to check on when people had signed up for their Yahoo ID … an excellent way to weed out spammers and thieves. Now, I have to send a questionnaire to every person who wants to join, which opens up my email address to additional spam.
Thanks, Yahoo, for giving us things we don’t want and messing up things that actually work.
And, yes, I’m a paying user of Yahoo, so don’t tell me I should be satisfied because it’s free.
What tickles me is that no other client but the iPhone get love from Y! Mail team, I do check my mail on my Sony Ericsson K790, Wii and PSP and there’s not even a different CSS, not even click able links on all these other clients.
Also I can see the reason for the profiles backlash, even if I like the new thing, there’s no justification on flipping a gigantic switch without asking first, specially if there’s even a minimal privacy, or sense of privacy, involved.
Thanks, its frustrating not getting any feedback about feature suggestions. I’ll wait til ’09 to see whats coming down the pike!
Saying that I think this sucks is putting it likely. Changing my profile without my permission or notification is one thing, but all my settings getting changed to public really lit my fuse.
“Oh hey, we’re going to change your profile, and by the way all those privacy settings you had, yeah they’re gone. Oh and you’ll have to go in there and fix all that, because we felt the need to mess with everything and not tell you.” Is this your idea of privacy? Sheesh!
I think I am heading down that route as well. What annoyed me was the Yahoo Photos was updated, excellent update for their photo app, and then several months later axe’d for flickr. They are different targets, and I still don’t understand that decision of having to move everyone to flickr. I still don’t use flickr, and I loved using the ‘in house’ product by Yahoo. I am no dummy either, I am a php/ajax developer and have had an offer on the table from yahoo which i decided not to take, because of all these weird, seemingly directionless decisions which are being made. This profile fiasco made me happy that I decided not to go there.
Yes, I understand it’s not that simple, from the provider standpoint and also the customer standpoint. I know things aren’t upto the yahoo mail team either. But it feels like we (the customer) have been ignored, and things more moving way slow, the calendar functionality was only added now (in beta), almost 3 years later on! I’ve been trying to use Zimbra, but it’s just too slow, too bulky, and just pointless. IMO it’s wasted resources (while the corporate version is warranted, a consumer standpoint? I don’t think so). Especially if we are paying (which is now almost unheard of for email), there should be a push.
Hi Nabz,
We understand that not everyone will want to use Zimbra, but it’s a step in the right direction. And I get that many of you see the iPhone support and wonder why we don’t just “flip the switch”, but it’s not that simple. For example, a user accessing IMAP from a desktop client requires a more server support than one accessing from a mobile device. Anyway, I hope that the toe in the water with Zimbra demonstrates that we are looking at the situation.
-Ryan
Yeah, something works just fine & suddenly Yahoo people decide they have to show some work just to earn their wage and they up and change something with no notice. Some time ago they changed the e-mail and it took days to get it back to something I liked and knew how to use. It is my habit, when I receive an unsolicited YM, to check the profile of the sender and suddenly there are no photos for anyone. Today I tried to “fix” my profile according to the alert in my homepage and discovered my photo had been changed to one I used a couple years ago. Even people I knew that have photos in their profiles no longer have them so what gives? This constant changing, coupled with the deletion of PhotoMail & the advent of a pay program Flikr, are a couple of the reasons I closed my Mail Plus account and no longer pay for my service.
Hi Steve,
Hear you loud and clear on the stock ticker. It’s not on the books right now, but I think there might be a possibility in ’09. I’ll continue to push for it and let you know if there are any developments.
-Ryan
Maybe it’s off topic, but this is the mail blog, and nowhere else does anyone listen (I’ve had, and seen posts deleted from the request boards, etc).
John – I know what you mean, I agree with the Google sentiment. I don’t want my email scanned for anything but viruses. But I have alot of my mail accounts on my desktop, and sometimes it’s just easier to use. I don’t want POP mail, I like keeping things in sync. I have several different accounts forwarded to my yahoo. Anyway, I don’t like being forced to use their Zimbra software, it’s bloated, has a 120mb background service just to check mail, and overall its pointless when Outlook does a fantastic job.. Regardless of that, iphone users get imap for free, while still those of us who pay (including the small business) do not have that option. I still think it’s poor. I don’t use POP because maybe I need to check something when I’m not at my machine, I’m all over the place. And it would be nice to cross reference my yahoo emails with my exchange emails, especially since it can now be done very easily in outlook. Either way, it’s on principle, that it should be available, especially for paying customers. I’m actually thinking of canceling Y! Plus and using IzyMail to interface.
Anyway, on topic about profiles, it’s useless. Yahoo has no idea what direction things are going on. And judging by the backlash on the blog post about profiles, it’s defiantly the wrong direction. The new calendar is awesome, it adds functionality, but profiles, the amount of stuff that was taken out, just removes alot more.
I would like to see stock information incorporated into yahoo mail. It would be nice to see a scrolling stock tape ticker.
I agree. I’ve already deleted a bunch of accounts with various networking sites because there are just too many.
RE: Nabz
I, too, am a Y!Mail Plus user and I have absolutely no problem w/ iPhone “push” e-mail for all users, plus or otherwise. I do agree we should be given the option of IMAP or POP3, but I wouldn’t use IMAP on any of my desktops due to the plethora of e-mail I have in my mailbox. Also, if you have 4-5GB of mail in your mailbox, I doubt you’d want to download all of it just to keep things in sync. Therefore, I think having Push e-mail free for everyone is a great thing–if I decide to keep Plus or not, at least I know I can still access it on my iPhone. :D
Just to share… Mail Plus is good for having POP3, additional attachment size, and no ads–all the reasons I pay $19.99/yr (or approx. $1.65/mo). Thankfully there are competitors, but none of which offer anything compelling enough for me to switch. Gmail is nice, but I don’t like having the content of my e-mails used for marketing purposes–SPAM filtering is another story. If you’re scanning the content of my e-mail in an effort to filter for SPAM, then I have no problem with it. However, if you’re scanning the content of my e-mail to sell me advertising, then I do have a problem, and I would just go back to my ISP for e-mail. Yahoo, like it or not, at least lets me keep my e-mail seperate from my ISP.
I like the new layout and everything that’s been done with it so far.
I’d like to see the following services integrated into the Yahoo! Profile pages because these pages are an essential starting point to bring Yahoo! services together and can also be used to promote services to users that might not be aware of what Yahoo! offers:
Flickr, Y! Buzz, Upcoming, FireEagle, delicious, Y! Bookmarks, Answers.
What’s more; it would be awesome if I could import an RSS feed to my blog. Do not turn this into a blogging service – I cannot stress that enough. It needs to be more like Yahoo!’s FriendFeed.
What you should also do is allow me to use my profile URL as an OpenID identifier.
unless all of these social sites start merging (and I know that’s a goal of many), in my opinion this is just going to add to an already saturated market
To stay on-topic, I am personally very interested by the YOS. At first, Yang’s presentation at the CES did not convince me and i was afraid to see a real mess in my inbox; However, now the ore i think about it, the more I understand the true potential;
I just hope that you guys actively talk to third-party social network and encourage them to join you. Cause frankly, from what I have seen, the Go Mobile 3.0 opening up strategy did not seem to attract many people. The gallery is still quite empty
Been clamoring about this for a LONG TIME. Us PAYING Y!Mail users don’t get IMAP, but the iPhone suckers get it without asking? This is garbage. POP is useless. I’m real close from leaving Yahoo mail (since I have an outside email address where everything is forwaded to my yahoo account), but no IMAP is disasterous. And no, I don’t want to use Zimbra, I don’t need another bloated email application for one account, when my 4 others, incl exchange, are in outlook already. Hell, Gmail offers IMAP for FREE!