Yahoo Guards Its Email Turf

RED HERRING | Yahoo Guards Its Email Turf: "Yahoo began offering improved email searching capabilities Tuesday as it tried to dissuade users from switching to Google’s Gmail.

Yahoo’s email users can now search through all their attachments, including the photos that make up more than 40 percent of all of Yahoo’s email attachments. Yahoo is testing its enhanced search functionality with a small cross-section of users before it rolls it out to the wider community. The media company already offers users the ability to search email content.

Email search is just a small part of a larger, grander plan. “Their big challenge is to get you to save everything on email—all your photos, videos, and everything you want to share—and ultimately solidify your relationship with them,” said Gary Stein, an analyst with JupiterResearch.

Consumers have already begun using these services as repositories, especially Gmail, due to its storage capacity and content-searching capabilities. Gmail, which launched in 2004, offers 2 GB of storage space to its users. Yahoo offers 1 GB to those that use its service for free, and 2 GB to those that dish out $19.95 for premium subscriptions.

“Their big challenge is to get you to save everything on email—all your photos, videos, and everything you want to share—and ultimately solidify your relationship with them,” said Gary Stein, an analyst with JupiterResearch.

Consumers have already begun using these services as repositories, especially Gmail, due to its storage capacity and content-searching capabilities. Gmail, which launched in 2004, offers 2 GB of storage space to its users. Yahoo offers 1 GB to those that use its service for free, and 2 GB to those that dish out $19.95 for premium subscriptions.

Yahoo’s email was the most widely used service in July in the United States, with 167 million users, according to comScore Media Metrix. Gmail, on the other hand, only had 5.4 million users. Although the number of Gmail users is relatively small, it’s bound to increase as Google keeps drawing users from other email services.

Reading Your Mind

And that’s what Yahoo would like to block. Its new search capability offers features like search matching, which means that if you type in the first few letters of a query, it will try to read your mind and understand your intent.

Yahoo is also capitalizing on the fact that photos are among the biggest drivers of stickiness—that is, getting people to stay with a service. So, as it extends its search functionality to attachments, it will deliver thumbnail views of the photos that get pulled up in response to a search query.

If users can dig out content from their email service easily, they will continue to use it as a storage medium. The more material they store, the harder it will be to switch to a new service.

From the Sunnyvale, California-based Internet media company’s perspective, a larger number of users could potentially mean a larger number of advertising dollars. As it attempts to hold on to its customers—and advertisers—it plans to roll out several new email improvements over the course of the next few months."

Gmail is still better then Yahoo:
-No annoying picture adds
-Only ads are some small text ads on the right hand side out of the way (I forget they are even there)
-2(and counting) gigs of FREE space
-A lot easier to manage and a nice simple look.

Image Found: Here