Yahoo Boosts Email Space in response to Gmail

coleslawjoe writes "This article at New York Times explains that Yahoo has decided to boost their E-mail space (Soul sucking registration required) from their current 4 megabytes to 100 in response to Gmail. They are also planning to offer 2 gig mailboxes for $19.99(USD)."

Yahoo! is missing the point

[ponds]

What makes Gmail incredible and revolutionary is the search features, the amazing interface, the threading, the labeling, and the tried and true "google minimalism."

Getting 1000mB's of space is just a side effect, that's there because gmail makes it desirable to archive multiple entire mailing lists.

Yahoo! is missing the point.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Already in action.. jackson

[greendot]

I logged in this morning and saw the new user interface and the 2G limit. I've never had my yahoo mail down to 1% before. :)

And another bonus is that yahoo does not count items in their bulk mail (spam) folder towards your quota.

Now to fill up my 2G limit. I think I'll mail myself some CDs.

Re:hrmmm 2 gig for $20 or 1 gig for free?

[polymorpheus]

What do you mean "catch-up"? Gmail isn't even available to the public yet!

Re:hrmmm 2 gig for $20 or 1 gig for free?

[SandmanCL]

You seem to miss out on one thing: gmail isn't even publicly available yet.

And when it's full...

[darien]

That's cool. It'll be nice not to have to clear out my Yahoo! inbox every week. This will probably stop me migrating. After all everyone already knows my @yahoo.com email address.

However, at some point my 100Mb box will be full, and I'll want to get it down to, say 50Mb. At which point I very much hope there'll be some decent new tools for bulk deletion. The idea of trying to free up 50Mb by clicking through page after page of email going "select... delete..." does not appeal.

Re:How about instead...

[dghcasp]

The only reason people keep [email] around is that they're too lazy to delete them themselves.

Bullocks.

There's lots of reasons people keep their email around basically forever... Some quick examples:

• License keys
• Particularly nice or significant email messages
• Evidence that someone actually said something & can't deny it later
• For future reference

Or are you one of those Dilbert-esque PHB's who have your secretary print all your emails, file them in binders, then keep them under lock & key until you forget the key?

umm

[mrpuffypants]

Gmail: 1,024 megabytes
Yahoo: 100 megabytes

I think it's pretty clear that Yahoo is getting desperate and stupid; they most lileky don't have the infrastructure in place to offer 1GB email accounts or they already would have. 100MB is just a temporary kludge to keep existing users from flocking to GMail as long as possible (p.s: it won't work!)

Re:100mb? WOW!

[Dracolytch]

All superficial jabbing aside... The 100 megs is here ~today~, coupled with some of the best spam-filtering available, and without some of the privacy issues that will cause problems for gmail overseas.

I'll take "Free existing cool service" over "Free theoretical awesome service" any day.

~D

Interactive Ad-Games: The Spam of the Future!

[Badam]

No one is happier than I that Yahoo is increasing my quota. I'm just about out of space, and don't want to irritate my friends by bouncing back their messages. My mom can get pretty pissed too.

How long before spam starts including multimedia files that eat up the extra allocation? Now that so many people have broadband, there's no reason to stick to smaller messages. Emails may start to include much more advanced/annoying graphics, sounds and maybe interactive ad-games.

Re:hrmmm 2 gig for $20 or 1 gig for free?

[fr0dicus]

I doubt it. People don't like changing their e-mail address, any more than they like changing their phone number, and anyone stuck with 4MB will find the new 100MB ceiling massively bigger. Yahoo are very effectively protecting their installed userbase.

Re:I don't get it

[jjohnson]

Because installing sendmail and some spam filter is non-trivial, and often a pain in the ass, and you have to worry about system security, patching, maintenance...

I'm seriously considering shutting down my own mail host because I've moved it three times in the last year, and every time I set it up again, I wonder why I'm putting all this effort into it.

Re:I dont get this trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Never changed your ISP before? With a webmail account when you change ISPs you dont have to change your email address too.

Re:hrmmm 2 gig for $20 or 1 gig for free?

[daoine]

It depends on how you look at the move. I don't think Yahoo is necessarily going to attract new customers with this model.

However, with this move they're highly likely to retain their current paying customers. People who were paying for 20M get 2G for the same price. It's suddenly no longer worth the hassle to get an invite to Gmail, nor are you likely to move over once Gmail is public. Changing an email address is a pain, and if you were willing to pay before, you're likely to be willing to continue.

Re:2GB Mailboxes

[pbur]

Isn't all that impressive? Everytime I show it to people and show them all of the things it lets you do, they all start begging me for an invite. The Gmail interface is very utilitarian, much like their search interface. It also loads a *lot* faster than Yahoo!'s

Re:100mb? WOW!

[Mard]

There were other changes to Y! Mail today that weren't announced, including an updated interface and an increased message size limit (was 3MB, is now 10MB).

Yahoo also recently decided that any messages that get filtered to your Spam folder no longer count towards your maximum email limit - a change that had a HUGE impact on how often I have to check my email. I have a 6mb free yahoo account, for some reason, but would have to check my mail daily to prevent any legitimate mail from being blocked when my box filled. Since the change, I haven't seen my limit go up by 1% :)

With 100MB and this new rule, I definately wouldn't have to leave Yahoo! Mail for lack of space. However, there are plenty of reasons I'll be moving to gmail upon release anyways. Yahoo, if you're listening, here goes:

1) Large and Obnoxious flash ads. These should have died with the dotcom era.

2) When switching accounts, for instance when my mother checks her email, I have to first click the [Logout] link, then I have to click your "Return to Yahoo! Mail"-link in order to enter the new login info. Of course this page has many ads, all of which I ignore. I'm not changing logins so that I can save 25% on car insurance, or whatever you seem to think I'm interested. I've never intentionally clicked on a single one of your ads, btw.

3) I have to enter my password once a day? My computer is secure, so feel free to save my password for the next 30 years if you'd like. Or at least give me the option to do so, because that's what I would like.

4) The stability this morning was crap :) Not sure if that is from them updating or what, but it was annoying enough.

5) The new color scheme on the front page is, for lack of a better word, gay (it's light purple, ffs). The rest of the 'new' UI is... pretty, but I don't see any changes besides rounder triangles.

All of this aside, the one major improvement that would make me consider switching to any mail service is an improvement over my current spam detection rate. It's at about 95% blocked now. If any other webmail services can improve on that without more false-positives, I'm sure they'll make plenty of devoted fans.

Re:umm

[mjh]

(p.s: it won't work!)

Actually it might. Right now, only beta testers can migrate to gmail. But most people can't. So they can't weigh whether the gmail service is better/worse than yahoo. As a consequence, people may discover that 100MB of mail space is all they need. If they're used to 6MB of mail space, 100MB is a huge increase. The decision isn't just between an additional 94MB and 994MB. It's between:

• 1000GB
• 100MB + keep current email address

Don't discount the cost of switching your email address. Keeping your email address is probably worth a whole lot more to most people than an additional 900MB of disk space... especially if they've been getting by with 6MB of disk space.

IMHO, this is a really good move on Yahoo's part. It will be interesting to see how well it works.

Size doesn't really matter!

[jbarr]

It's the other features such as Search, Labels, Conversations, Keyboard Shortcuts, and a lightning-fast interface that leverage the larger storage space. Anyone can offer tons of space, but unless you provide tools to effectivly utilize it, it's just space.

Re:Yahoo! is missing the point

[jdreed1024]

What makes Gmail incredible and revolutionary is the search features, the amazing interface, the threading, the labeling, and the tried and true "google minimalism."

Getting 1000mB's of space is just a side effect, that's there because gmail makes it desirable to archive multiple entire mailing lists.

Yahoo, once upon a time, was also search engine. (Yes, yes, it was called the Yahoo directory, but it did eventually do crawling) And a pretty good one, too. (I'm talking back when it was still a Stanford project, like another search engine [google.com]) It's not inconceivable they had a project like this on the back burner that's getting ramped up to compete with Google. Granted, I don't think they have a chance, just because of the way Google works, their strong desire for simplicity, and the desire to keep the ads out of the search results.

What's most notable, however, is that Yahoo is doing this right now. And we don't even have a firm release date for Gmail. It's still in beta. If Yahoo is already scared of a beta service, that's saying something.

Re:Yahoo! is missing the point

[Malc]

Before the web became so large, Yahoo had the best search engine too, beating all those like Lycos and Hotbot. Because of it's hand-crafted directory, it provided the best context for each site returned in a search, and it provided an easy way of finding other sites of the same type. What couldn't be found that way could be with a little more effort on Altavista. Of course, Yahoo still has their directory, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as useful today - perhaps that's credit Google and the quality of their search engine.

Why do you have so much email?

[prwood]

I don't understand the need for these gargantuan email boxes. My personal (non-work) IMAP mailbox has mail dating back to July 2002 (all of my email before that is archived and I never look at it), and it's just under 60 megabytes. At that rate, I would reach Yahoo!'s limit by the end of 2008, at which point I would probably just archive my email again. My work email is an entirely separate, company-provided account, but I still only have 186 megabytes of email going back to May 2000. 46.5 megabytes per year.

I think if you're using 1-2 GB for your email, then you should consider some non-email ways of managing your data. There are already many sites on the internet that archive mailing lists, so there's no need to keep around a personal copy of list mail. Purging the Trash and deleting spam messages helps to save space. Instead of emailing large files, consider serving them up on the web, ftp, etc. Even if you do email large files, there's no need to keep them in your mailbox after they are downloaded. Save them to your computer, burn them to a CD if needed, and delete them.

Then again, maybe everyone else on the internet is just way more popular than I am.

Re:100mb? WOW!

[Lehk228]

paying = about $20 per year, and for global pop3 access and 2 gigs of storage, $20/year isn't bad at all.

Pros and cons of both

[pen]

Yahoo

• Still only one tenth the space of Gmail
• Still has annoying graphical ads.
• but:
• Open and available now and for everyone
• Compatible with older browsers.
• Integrated with Yahoo's other services like Calendar and Notepad

Yahoo is hoping that increasing the storage space to 100MB will keep a lot of people from switching to Gmail.

Gmail

• 1000MB of storage
• Great interface with convenient searching
• Very calm and non-intrusive advertising
• but:
• Still a closed beta
• Issues still being worked out (Google has been very responsive about the bugs I have reported, even though they were low-priority)
• If you're already a Yahoo user, requires changing habits (aka new player on the field)
• Currently only compatible with the newest browsers (Google says they're working on an alternative simpler version)

Re:100mb? WOW!

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I see it, you have two choices:

1. Go for a free account, in which case you get what you're given.
- In Gmail's case it's having them snoop your mail, placing "relevant" adds in strategic locations, on a beta quality product that hasn't been long-term tested.
- In Hotmail's case it's having no storage and next to no decent spam protection
- In Yahoo's case it's having banner ads that anybody using a half decent browser setup gets blocked anyway

or

2. Pay for an account and get upgraded with more storage space immediately. And in Yahoo's case at least lose the ads.

I seriously can't see why people would need more than 100MB in the short term. It's a known fact that these companies want to keep their customers and will raise their storage amounts in line with their competitors to meet perceived need. If you really think you need 1GB of storage in the next few months, I'd suggest most of it is in attachments, in which case you're better off using a networked storage mechanism (www.xdrive.com, www.idrive.com).

Or maybe the people on here so worried about having this sort of space are just wanting the world to know they have a big bad mailbox for no other reason than to have one.

These people not worth anything to the mail companies (they're blocking their ads and don't pay for accounts, so are just getting a free ride anyway), so the companies not going to pay them much attention, are they?

Re:100mb? WOW!

[chris_mahan]

Likewise, who the F does google think they are, just because their IPO made them feel all cozy.

I don't give a damn about gmail if I can't sign in. As far as I am concerned, it's vaporware.

I'll tell you something. It's easy to have a great system with 10k users. When they have 85 million users, we'll talk again.

Yahoo has been doing email for what, 6 years now? They're rock solid.

Oh, and Orkut is also vaporware as fa as I am concerned.

Maybe google should pay attention to apple and not release things until they are ready.

Re:How about instead...

[Stregone]

http://yahoopops.sourceforge.net/

This is how storage space claim will be rendered

[melted]

irrelevant. No one really needs more than 100M of email space. Now they will have to compete on convenience, features, etc. They (they being Google) are still in a strong position, but not as strong as before. If I were to choose between email providers I'd use the one that has POP3 (or IMAP) available and better spam filtering.

I actually thing Google screwed themselves by announcing this service too early in the game. If they announced a full blown, stable version they'd have a GIANT market lead.

Re:100mb? WOW!

[Dracolytch]

Another advantage of going to a web page: It is MUCH better against virii. Even if they didn't have built-in virus scanning, it takes additional steps to dowload/execute malicious code.

~D

Re:100mb? WOW!

[jiawen]

The new color scheme on the front page is, for lack of a better word, gay (it's light purple, ffs).

Really? You couldn't think of a better word than "gay"? How about "ugly" or just "unappealing"? I find the use of "gay" to mean "bad" pretty offensive. I know that "gay" is becoming a negative word again, but that doesn't mean I have to like it -- especially because I'm part of the group that is usually considered "gay".

Maybe you didn't realize that this use of the word gay is offensive. Please trust me, it is. Use "bad" or "uncool" or "terrible", but don't use "gay".

Also, for what it's worth, my Yahoo mail interface is light blue, all the way. No purple in sight. (Too bad, since purple is my favorite color. :) )

yahoo doesn't get it

[zorander]

I haven't used yahoo's mail in a few years, but as I remember the interface was clunky, slow, and painful, and there were adds above and/or below.

Regardless of the space they give you, that's probel number one. GMail has a very slick interface. It's as responsive as a web based user interface as any of the standalone mail programs I have used, which is very impressive. From what I hear, there is an 80kb .js file that is cached locally and after that everything is very very quick.

There isn't any difference between one gigabyte and one hundred megabytes to 99.9% of the people out there who could fit their mail in a few megs easily. It's really only power-users/mailing list subscribers who'll even approach one hundred. Heck, at my school I'm capped at $150 and after a year of deleting nothing I'm only at 30%. I'm a member of python-dev and wxpython-users which are both moderately trafficked groups and used to belong to python-users which is a very high traffic group. All these messages (thousands) are still around. It would take me a lot of time to fill that 150M, much less a gigabyte.

In any case, Yahoo should follow google's lead in the ad policies/user interface, rather than raw space. You could offer a terabyte and no one would even approach it, *it doesn't matter* If you're using a gig on gmail right now, chances are you are either being gratuitously inefficient or somehow abusing the system (using it for backup or something). There's just no way.

Brian

Re:100mb? WOW!

[saden1]

I thank Gmail for lighting fire under Yahoo! Without Gmail, Yahoo! would have been happy with the status quo. I'm still going to get a Gmail account for posterity but I'm now going to stick with Yahoo! as my primary email account in large part because of the mail limit increase.

I also agree that Yahoo! has more experience. They have been good to me for the past 5 years.