When I got home from grad school last night, I logged into my Yahoo! account to read my email and saw an offer to demo the new version of Yahoo! mail that is in beta testing right now. I have been waiting for Yahoo! to catch up to Google in the mail department for a long time. Google Mail is so much better than Yahoo Mail but who wants to change their address? Google Maps & Yahoo! Maps were rolled out around the same time and they both use XML & SOAP really well to deliver a super slick interface to the user. I happily said yes and when I saw that Yahoo! has turned (and continues to improve) its clunky mail offering into a dynamic MS Outlook-like version (not sure if its AJAX or simply a great use of Flash), I started punching the air and saying “Yes! Yes! This is what I’ve been waiting for! DHTML baby! Yes!!” I then once again realized I am a tremendously large geek.
Seriously though, the new Yahoo! Mail rocks and not only that, by moving the ad that free users see from a horizontal “leaderboard” one running across the top to a vertical “skyscrapper” running along the side, they have craftily made me more likely to spend the $20 a year for Mail Plus because now I lose pixel width which makes it more difficult to read my ads. So sneaky. So smart. I love it!