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SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo is making it easier to choose between e-mail and instant-messaging tools by bringing the two together in its Mail program.
Yahoo Mail, which counts 250 million active users, plans in coming months to incorporate the Yahoo Messenger instant-messaging program inside the e-mail service, Yahoo executive Brad Garlinghouse announced.
Consumers will be able to run the two programs in one Web browser. There will be no need to download Yahoo Messenger software.
Yahoo’s melding of e-mail and instant messaging follows the lead of rival Google, which merged its Google Talk instant-message chat service with its Gmail e-mail program. But Yahoo’s audience is roughly 10 times larger than Google’s base of e-mail users, according to industry data.
In the first public demonstration of the combined service at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Garlinghouse and a colleague showed how, when a user opens up and addresses an e-mail, an icon appears if he or she is online.
Clicking the icon instantly transforms a conversation from the delayed, “read-it-whenyou-have-a-chance” way people use e-mail into the immediate back-and-forth of an instant message conversation.
The existing version of Yahoo Messenger also offers Web-calling capabilities.
Yahoo is considering how and whether to incorporate these calling features inside the merged Yahoo e-mail and instant messaging system, a spokeswoman said. REUTERS