Yahoo adds social tools to webmail service

Yahoo's new mail service was announced at the UK launch of its redesigned homepage

Internet portal giant Yahoo today launched a new version of its popular webmail service for UK users, designed to offer more social functionality and access to productivity enhancing applications.

David McDowell, European head of mail at Yahoo, outlined the new features at the official UK launch of the new Yahoo homepage, announced to US users on Tuesday, saying that the enhancements to Yahoo Mail centre on "solving key user pain points and needs".

The new service, which starts rolling out today and will be available to all users by September, now includes a What's New page which looks similar to a Facebook profile page.

A 'connection suggestion' section will highlight the contacts in a user's inbox with whom they interact most frequently, and then show and prioritise new messages from these contacts on the What's New page.

A new Facebook-like status update space, meanwhile, allows users to type in their current status and make the information available to other contacts via the What's New page.

The revamped Yahoo Mail also makes third-party applications available to Yahoo users, which the company claims will help to boost productivity. Examples include PayPal and Flickr, along with Send It, which allows users to send files of up to 100MB in size. All of the applications can be accessed without having to leave Yahoo Mail.

"We are trying to understand user pain points, and at the same time incorporate actions that are one step removed from traditional email activities, " said McDowell.

"It's about understanding who you care about and making you more productive by extending what you can do in your inbox. We are trying to create a smarter inbox than you've had before."

Yahoo also released more details about its new mobile homepage, which will be officially launched next week. The site will feature PC-to-mobile synching which will recognise when a user changes the look and feel of their home page on their PC and ask on their next visit whether they want to update these changes on the mobile site.

This functionality will initially be available on the iPhone, BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold, Series 60 Nokia and Windows Mobile devices, with others to come soon, according to Yahoo.