|
Yahoo e-mail battles Gmail
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-16 08:42
Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. is fortifying its free e-mail service with 25
times more storage and freeing up millions of previously claimed e-mail
addresses in an effort to thwart a looming threat from its increasingly
disruptive rival Google Inc.
 Beginning Tuesday, all of Yahoo's free e-mail accounts will be upgraded
to 100 megabytes, a move spurred by Google's plans to offer 1,000 megabytes of
free storage through its Gmail service, which has remained in a test phase since
early April.
Yahoo has been offering 4 megabytes of free e-mail storage, although some
people with accounts opened several years ago have 6 megabytes of free storage.
Sunnyvale-based Yahoo disclosed that it would be increasing its free storage
to 100 megabytes during an analyst meeting held last month, but hadn't provided
a specific time for the upgrade until now.
The company hopes to appeal to e-mailers in other ways, too.
Angling for new users, Yahoo has decided to let people begin signing up for
addresses that have been inactive for years. The offer is designed to lure Web
surfers who may have been previously interested in signing up for a free Yahoo
e-mail account only to learn one of their preferred handles had already been
claimed.
"Some of these addresses could be very juicy and might attract a lot of
interest," said David Ferris, an e-mail analyst in San Francisco.
Yahoo says "tens of millions" of dormant e-mail addresses will be made
available again. The company also say it will improve the tools used to search
its e-mails -- a feature that Google has been touting -- and spruce up the
service with a cleaner look.
"This is a highly competitive marketplace and we have been listening to our
customers so we can build the things that our users want," said Brad
Garlinghouse, Yahoo's vice president of communications products.
A Google spokesman declined to comment on Yahoo's changes or the company's
Gmail service. Mountain View-based Google can't say much about Gmail or its
other products because the company is pursuing an initial public offering of
stock, which requires management and other insiders to remain mum.
Although it's still not available to the general public, Gmail has received
widespread publicity since Google unveiled its plans to get into the free e-mail
business just a few weeks before the company's IPO filing.
Not all the feedback has been positive. Many privacy watchdogs and some
lawmakers have railed against Google's plans to electronically scan e-mail and
deliver text-based ads related to the topics correspondents are writing about --
something Yahoo insists it will never do.
Gmail, nevertheless, appears to have the makings of a hot commodity. Some
people already have been buying restricted invitations to sign up for early
Gmail accounts on eBay, with some bids surpassing $60. Google has been steadily
expanding Gmail's reach by allowing existing accountholders to send invitations
to friends and family to join the service.
Yahoo operates the most popular free e-mail service on the Web. The company's
e-mail service attracted 39.8 million unique users in April, trailed by
Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail service at 34.6 million unique users, according to
Nielsen Net/Ratings. The Hotmail service offers only 2 megabytes of free e-mail
storage.
During the past three years, Yahoo has been trying to drum up more revenue by
selling subscriptions to premium e-mail accounts that offered more storage and
other features, such as stronger protection against junk mail. The company has
never disclosed how many subscribers pay for its premium e-mail service.
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top Life
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
