On the Yahoo! Mail team, we have no shortage of big personalities and big brains. We’re a diverse family of technical and creative talent dedicated to making Yahoo! Mail the best email experience for you. We love what we do, and we wanted to share with you some of our thinking as well as introduce you to some members of our team.
Today we’re featuring Rick Pal, who is the product manager responsible for Yahoo! Contacts and for making Yahoo! Mail more social and connected. Yahoo! Mail is not just about sending and receiving emails; it’s also about helping you keep in touch to the people who matter most to you. In this interview, Rick discusses the thinking behind why Yahoo! Mail is becoming more social, and why we brought in Facebook to improve user experiences in Mail, Contacts, and more. Check out this video clip and feel free to give us feedback about what you like (or don’t like) about these new social features. Enjoy!
Tags: facebook
just read all recent comments on your proposed social development. all against, none for? have you got the message yet?
MSN has to many annoying flashing ads. To much for someone who has epilepsy. Flashing light can trigger seizure activity. Yahoo’s ads are not as bothersome or distractive to the eye.
For the shot time I’ve been using Yahoo e mail, the system is easy to navigate, and its fun.
Computer technology is ever changing, and I’d like the e mail systems to be in sync, it would make it a lot easier. Yet in the world of techology we can’t have it all. I’d rather have analog TV ….
Much to my dismay, I’ve had to abandon Yahoo because of the continued lack of Outlook integration and IMAP. Yahoo has shown no interest in providing tools or 3rd party access for this sync. I live in Outlook at work, and need to sync up for my “personal life”. Google lets me do this easily. I hate their interface and actually love Yahoo’s for mail and calendar. But I can’t use it without the sync. Prioritize this over facebook and twitter crap, and I can come back. Thanks.
i want to know how to share items i get in my yahoo mail acct directly to my face book acct anyone who can help please let me know thanks steve
Hey Rick,
Thank for introducing you in video. That’s a great initiative and i’m looking forward to see you more this way. Clearly it may not be easy the first times but in the end the whole community will certainly appreciate it.
Talking about “personnality in email”… why don’t you let me customize my address book contacts avatars…. seriously… 1% of my address book has a Y! profile and 10% of those have uploaded an avatar… that comes to three people….
Looking forward to play with the next-gen Y!Mail. Right now all i know about it it listed here : guillaumeb.com/ym
Keep up the good work
do not wish to have my Facebook and friends integrated with Yahoo.Always used Yahoo but now a computer email prgramme is more like getting involved with people who I dont wish to know.
More and more like being snooped upon
Maybe find some other provider but certainly don’t want my Facebook mixed in with Yahoo Know lots of my friends think the same.
Yahoo should be thinking about its users not who it employs .Have enough strange people to cope with do not want any more! Scams,spam letters and even someone asking me about my fella as she knew him years ago.Too much
Keep it simple and then there are no divorces ,worried partners etc.Smile.Serious though .You will lose a lot of Yahoo followers if you carry on .
Dump all this social networking! You should all realise that the government snoopers will get into your emails! I don’t care how many safeguards are installed the snoopers will find out if you’ve earned a penny on which you haven’t paid tax! Your rewards cards details such as Tesco Clubcard go to the revenue; FACT! They need to know if you suddenly buy a case of Champagne!
So there’s enough social network rubbish. for them to spy on.
Yahoo should stick to getting the email service right. I switched to Yahoo because my website email facility had picked up a milliard of viruses and thus told all my contacts to change their address books; I wish I hadn’t. Outlook Express is far superior but sadly part of the virus is I can’t use OE! Once I’ve sorted the viruses I’ll be switching to Hotmail or back to my own facility.
Has it occurred to you that you’re offering an email service that doesn’t support Desktop IMAP while at the same time it supports Push Email to mobile devices such as an iPhone? How does doing that make sense?
Does it matter to you that we don’t have Desktop IMAP support? Does Desktop IMAP even make it up on the “whiteboard” over there at Yahoo? Are you proud of a mail product that doesn’t support Desktop IMAP and makes you pay for POP access?
This is your chance to respond, here and now…. So, let’s hear it…. Why is there no Desktop IMAP support in Yahoo Mail when AOL and GMail offer it?
Agree with the above. The settings screens are still ‘under construction’. IMAP would be my favourite feature. I prefer Ymail to Gmail, if only for tabs (& tagging isn’t really my thing). The messages from your contacts was great, however Gmail seems to have released their new ‘Priority Inbox’ which is what I would like to see in yahoo.
Nowadays people involve more in online activities and most of them stick with communities and more interested in social media sites.
Hah, what happened to the Yahoo Music Player, promises, promises that it will get better after took it over from Music-Match etc., well that was not kept.
I can’t say much for the Social Networking idea either, enough said.
Just keep your customers happy by improving the E-Mail side of it please.
NO don’t put f/book with yahoo email. JUST MAKE YAHOO THE BEST. What about sending large files say up to 500 MB, having a searchable directory, for email and phone numbers. Electrol roll look up. Email tracking. who is it look up. local useful numbers/email. Spam mail reverse look up. The list is endless. Facebook would be an absolute unnecessary, shift, Make yahoo more accessible, on a friend/social basis. Award points, for connecting with others. The more points you have the more trust you gain. give a prize for integrity, wisdom, honesty and helpfulness. offer security, reliability, interactivity and never compromise. facebook is to unstable in a secure environment. Email should always be secure, able to stand up an do it all independent of any other application
We don’t need another site for stupid people to vent there veiws.The way social sites are used to bully & intimidate is scary.I stay with Yahoo because it is relatively pure.Stick with what you do best
I simply want email. No bells and whistles. No screen nags. O.K?
got to agree with the comment by RS you say most people are in favour maybe so but dont like the way Yahoo is going.
Why oh why oh why do you have to waste ours and your time with social nonsense, There was once a time when i opened yahoo mail and i got an inbox, outbox, drafts and trash, like most people i open mail to send a freakin mail, little tommy tucker next door does not need me to inform him i have my trousers round my ankles loosing a few pounds on the throne. I don’t need 1000 fake friends following the fact that i just sent a mail, i don’t need some cartoon with his dog , hogging my screen talking to me like a simpleton because you have digressed so far from the point that you have to include him to explain what the hell all the worthless clutter and banners and box within a box is for.
What was wrong with opening mail, seeing a list of received mail, clicking the desired mail and it then opening for you to read ? now it is a screen in a screen ,then only half the mail opens in the bottom of the screen, i then get confused , search for a tiny icon , wait , ooooh aaaahhhh wrong button , 2 mins in still can’t see it , finally find the full screen view button to get the mail open….. 25 years of ymail and it is taking 5 times as long to simply view a mail, 25 years ago was as simple as inbox, click mail , mail is open and i am reading, how do you go so far backwards ?
Banners for stationary, folders for this advert for that, where’s my contacts????? why can’t it be simple and say my top ten used contacts replace the stationary and man with his dog crap on the right side? much more useful ? loose all the tabs, perhaps even a simple feature such as – compose new mail -new mail window open , recipients address bar, hold mouse over blank address bar and a drop down stack of all your contacts appears ? so simple, effective and time saving ? want multiple recipients ? easy right mouse click each required contact , when finished simply left click the address bar! no nonsense useful feature and you got that one for free.
As for getting facebook involved, the very site that is renowned for how infuriating it’s interface can be, how unreliable it’s im function is ? Stop trying to be the hip kids and aim at refinement and function. Listen to your customers not what the tabloid press say is hip, stop bucking trends and alienating your core users. You promote the security and privacy of the service then contradict this by suggesting al our life and info should be made as public as possible , with as much ease as possible……..Keep it simple and get back on track and your users may just come back.
Where is the Yahoo Desktop IMAP support? It’s very inconvenient to have an iPhone that supports Push Mail sync with your webmail, but doesn’t sync with a Desktop Mail Client….
So when is Desktop IMAP functionality in Outlook/Apple Mail, etc. arriving?
AOL supports it….
GMail supports it….
I would appreciate an answer to this comment when you have a moment.
- AOL has IMAP to the Desktop and Mobile Devices… It’s great.
- GMail has IMAP to the Desktop and Mobile Devices and Exchange ActiveSync Support to Mobile Devices… It’s great.
And while Yahoo mail has push mail to iPhones, Yahoo mail doesn’t have IMAP to the Desktop… What’s the point of that? Don’t you realize how inconvenient it is to have messages get out of sync when you’re using a Desktop Client? So Yahoo Mail is now worthless to me.
You can integrate Facebook all you want… I don’t care about it and you’ll lose me as a customer if you don’t get your act together and flip the switch on Desktop IMAP support pronto.
Sincerely,
Fed Up
I agree with the above comments. I stayed with Yahoo mail for a long time after Gmail launched because I liked the minimalist interface. Just mail. That’s all I want. I even tolerated the “new Yahoo mail” but it seems the Yahoo mail team has lost their way. Instead of trying to cram as many buzzwords into the product description as possible, Yahoo should focus on making their Mail product superior.
For starters, I would like to see free IMAP access across all devices. I know the technology is there, I access Y! Mail on my phone via IMAP, why can’t I do the same on my desktop. Secondly, SSL security should be enabled throughout the transaction. How can anyone be expected to check their email at a public hotspot without the most basic security in place?
Please return to your roots and offer your loyal users what they have always wanted: a no-frills, secure webmail platform.
I do not care about social networking features. I don’t even have a Facebook page, nor will I ever. Keep those features out of my inbox!
Seriously I wish yahoo would concentrate on finishing a project before starting another. So much is “half done”. What happened to calendar being in a tab like contacts instead of a new window. Why does the Ymail mobile site not allow you to “check other mail”? So many little niggles that just keep adding to the thought… is it time I checked out the competition?
Nobody likes all their information being widely diffused, but regarding facebook (horrible thing, but I am a member, just not with this email address) I like the pulse but it is still incredibly fragmented – there was nothing wrong with the “profiles” system – before you changed it prior to its current incarnation. As for the people who complain,live with it!
What I would like to see is the send a [private] message back into someone’s inbox. and a little more managability for what information is made available.
As for the people complaining – despite it’s quirks, and there are many – I still find yahoo to be the best system outside of my outlook enabled email accounts.
~Steve
Not interested in social integration. Please make your email more robust. I have a paid Yahoo account which I use for business and my Yahoo email has been down lately with Error 1 code for more than 24 hours now. Also, my Yahoo calendar has not been working for over 4 months!! I have reported the problem to tech support and no response. Please fix your current issues. I’ll be moving over to Gmail soon if I cannot rely on my Yahoo email.
I agree with you Viv..sub-folders would be handy.
Also, I don’t know if it would be technically possible, but it would be great if somehow it were possible to be able to designate certain emails to go automatically straight into separate inboxes…eg job alerts, Freecycle, whatever one gets a lot of that one might want to immediately separate out for perusal, or read later….so that one wouldn’t have to plough through loads of them to find more personal emails.
Where are all these well received people, by the way? Give me an option to just see “e-mail only” no gadgetry, no extras, just my e-mail, then, I might be back,
Dislike. Not coming back to ymail. Already have ways to keep in touch with the people I want to. E-mail is for e-mail, not rikkita-rackita.
You are finally taking comments here again! Thank you!
I was driven away from Yahoo mail years ago by your changes, and this gives me no reason to come back. I went to (a rival product) because they kept it simple, which is all I want my e-mail to be. SIMPLE. You clutter it with things totally unrelated to e-mail and call it an improvement. I want it all O-U-T. Offer me a simple, no frills no extras e-mail interface. No flashing, space hogging ads, no trying to make it “smarter”, no extra junk, just my messages, sorted by date received, old school style. That’s all I’ve ever wanted or needed. If I want something else, I will use that product, not slapdash bloat that kills my load times. You’ve had nothing good for me for years, and although I keep hoping. This social move has been more unwanted junk in what I’ve moved to a simpler provider to retain. I tried it in fairness, as I have when new developments roll out in Y-Mail. Hoping for the best. I am always disappointed.
I think I am not alone, from what I have seen. With what Yahoo Groups just did to its users with their remodel, and the backlash they are getting right now, I would like to see Yahoo at least make an attempt to help users like us. I think you should offer simple e-mail and simple groups services, and let those interested tack on the rikkita-rakkitah. Let us technological minimalists just do what we came here to do in the first place, and not have all the extras shoveled on us.
Yahoo’s design changes have driven me away from:
Yahoo News, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Profiles, and the Yahoo Home Page. Putting ads in my paid e-mail interface even drove me to a new phone and internet provider! If there were a better rival for Groups, I’d have moved long ago. All because the design always clutters up the screen, reduces usable features and jumbles up what had previously no major problems.
As to ‘socializing’, I am already on Facebook, I don’t need to be stalked across every other website I happen to click on. I opted out of most of FB’s non-status sharing too, no way I am interested in doing it here. I bailed out of it when my current e-mail provider did a similar thing. They wisely stepped back from that. Develop all you like, just leave me an exit door each time so I can reset myself to how I had things. Some people don’t live in silicon valley. You folks who do seem to lose sight of that. At least that’s how it feels on my end. Good luck to you, I hope you remember us minimalists as you go forward. Seems like we’re the ones complaining. Let us carry on, and I bet we likely won’t care what you do for the people who want to play with the shiny things.
Cheers.
I’m not at all interested in social integration. Time would be better spent on improving yahoo mail (I would like to see sub-folders as an example).
I honestly believe that it is important to integrate with popular social networks. I, for example, never access Facebook, but through my Yahoo Mail I’m always following what my friends do. Nevertheless, I believe that integration is secondary when you consider how Yahoo Mail is lagging compared to other email services. We do not have features that today are basic items: a pop3 scanning to all folders (not just the inbox), IMAP, HTTPS, RSS feeds, calendar integration with contacts list …
I really love Yahoo Mail, but every day I find myself more disappointed and forced to consider a change of webmail provider. I do not want to do this, but…
Thanks everyone for your feedback. The Mail team is continuing to improve all parts of Yahoo! Mail, not just social. Please stay tuned for more there. While the social features have been well received by most users, we realize it isn’t for everyone. If you’d like to turn these features off, go to Options -> More Options (or Mail Options if you are on Mail Classic). While inside of Mail Options, de-select “Enable Updates” at the top of the General tab. Exit and refresh your page — then going forward you’ll have Yahoo! Mail sans Updates, status messages, and any links to Facebook features. Hope this helps.
I was very dissapointed when I saw Yahoo-Facebook integration. I even deleted my FB account. YahooMail should be YahooMail like it was before. I dont need stuff like that. Yahoo team, are you scared of loosing people because od stupid FB social .hit?
This is a waste of time and money. Please get email working before you try ANYTHING else. Facebook is just a fad. stay with what you do well Seach engine and email.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Forget the Facebook crap. Let Yahoo! get back to basics. Yahoo! has STRONG email! Compete head-to-head with GOOG and STAY STRONG. For no charge: give your users POP and IMAP access, mail forwarding, and https encrypted connections! Yahoo! is the LEADER in email. KEEP it that way!
I agree with steve, birthdays coming up on calendar would be much more useful!
Personally I dont like the idea.
I cannot understand why Yahoo think we need to socialise more.
In my opinion it is a bad idea and should be dropped.
Not at all interested in social sites or social integration. Concentrate on making Yahoo Mail the best web service out there. Didn’t you promise calendar integration rollout LAST February?
“Facebook and Twitter may be big now, but they are just fads like Friendster, MySpace, and others before them.”
Sorry, you would be quite mistaken socially integrated applications are all around you In fact every major business today has taken social very seriously. The Internet has changed how we do business there is no turning back social applications are here to stay. Time too see how your organization can best use social media.
I am sorry but this whole “social” emphasis is just silly. Can’t we first focus on improving the user experience in mail, calendar, and contacts? For example, why can’t I enter my birthdays and anniversaries in Contacts and have those dates show up in my Calendar. Building Ymail on the coattails of Facebook is a waste of good talent. Facebook and Twitter may be big now, but they are just fads like Friendster, MySpace, and others before them.
For myself, I care not a whit about “Social Integrations” I really would like to see functionality improvements. For example I would really like to IMAP support added well before any social integration. Same goes for contact and calender syncing with Outlook.
Joe