Chat and Text Your Friends from Yahoo! Mail Classic

Hello All – This week I want to take a moment to introduce you to Brandon Savage. Brandon is our Senior Product Manager for the Classic version of Yahoo! Mail. He’s got an exciting new feature to share with you. So take it away Brandon…

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I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “classic,” I think of a cherry red ’57 Corvette zipping down an open freeway… and about Yahoo! Mail Classic, of course.

It was with that beautiful ’57 Corvette racing through our minds that we designed the newest feature to hit Yahoo! Mail Classic: integrated chat and mobile texting, courtesy of our friends at Yahoo! Messenger. Zippy, real-time communication, without having to leave your Yahoo! Mail Classic inbox. With the addition of chat and mobile text, you can now choose the best way to communicate with friends who are online or on the go. It’s already a popular feature in the new Yahoo! Mail, so popular, in fact, that it seemed only right to give our dedicated Classic Mail users a smarter, more social Webmail experience, too.

Imagine this: the next time you sit down to compose an email to your sister reminding her that Mom’s birthday is TODAY, and that Mom is expecting a phone call, like, NOW, you notice that she is online, too. Instead of email, why not try chatting in real-time?

Or, for all you parents out there, ever tried to get in touch with your child while they were hanging out with their friends? Never fear, Yahoo! Mail is here – just send a mobile text right to their cell phone!

How does it work, you ask? Well, when you sign into your Yahoo! Mail Classic account, your Chat & Mobile Text contact list will appear on the left of your screen (you can place it above or below your personal folders, whichever you prefer). If your status says “Offline,” just click on it and select “Available” to sign in (fair warning to Yahoo! Messenger users: signing in here will log you out elsewhere). Once you do, you’ll see a list of all of your Contacts who are online and available to chat. We also show you the names of any Contacts with mobile phone numbers, for mobile texting, of course. Just click on a name to start a conversation!

Easy, right? But don’t take my word for it, go ahead and take this exciting new feature for a spin by sending a chat or mobile text message of your own. Chat and mobile text is rolling out to all Yahoo! Mail Classic users over the next couple of months, so cool your engines and please be patient if you don’t see it right away. We’ll get to you soon, I promise. Improving a classic takes time!

Brandon Savage,
Sr. Product Manager, Yahoo! Mail Classic