Last month, the newest version of Yahoo!7 Mail went live.  Some of you may have already seen and used it in beta form but now it’s dropped its ‘beta’ tag to become our latest and greatest Yahoo!7 Mail!  We’re proud of it and pleased to offer it to you.  We hope you upgrade soon – it’s easy, just go to our Mail Microsite to upgrade and enjoy the benefits:

Faster: This version of Yahoo!7 Mail is 2x faster than our previous versions of Yahoo!7 Mail, even for those with slower internet connections.
Safer: Globally, Yahoo! blocks over 550 billion spam messages a month and our advanced SpamGuard technology and anti-phishing platform have helped us reduce spam reports by 60 percent.  Here’s to a clean inbox!
Easier: Getting things done in Yahoo!7 Mail is even easier with features like rich photo slideshows, chatting with Facebook friends and instantly responding to messages with the reply bar.  We’ve also got over 50 themes so you can personalise your Mail box the way you like it – just drop down Options menu!

We’ve been building this new Mail for a while now and continually fixing things and releasing new functionality every few months. Have a look at our Help page for some tips to guide you during the migration process – click here.

Finally, even though the ‘beta’ label is no longer on the Mail product, we’re continuing to improve Yahoo!7 Mail.  There is a long list of features and functionality we’re tackling in the coming months and you’ll be hearing more!

We hope you enjoy using the new Yahoo!7 Mail.

To download the new version, tap the App Store icon on your iPhone and search for Yahoo! Messenger (you may also see an update alert on your App Store icon). Or click here to download it through iTunes. We hope you enjoy this latest version. If you have any technical issues with Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone, please send us feedback by tapping on “Settings”, then scrolling down and tapping on “Report Problem”.

This was announced earlier this month, by our Global Product Manager in the US, Thyaga Vasudevan.

Now you can enjoy IMing on the go with your friends from WLM too!

Tasla – Yahoo!7 Messenger team

If you use Facebook, Yahoo! Mail is getting better for you! As you may have heard, Yahoo! is putting a big focus on bringing you more social features, and this evening Yahoo! Mail is rolling out another handy way to connect with your friends. In select markets, we’re adding the ability to update your Facebook status right from Yahoo! Mail and see your friends’ Facebook profile photos when they email you. This quickly follows the feature we added last month that lets you easily import your Facebook friends’ email addresses to Yahoo! Contacts.

To turn on these features, first link your Yahoo! and Facebook accounts by clicking on the “Add to Facebook” link in the status section on the What’s New page in Yahoo! Mail.

After you log in with your Facebook credentials, you are good to go! Here’s what you’ll be able to do right from Yahoo! Mail:

Update your Facebook Status: Simply start typing what’s on your mind in the status box, and then choose where you want to share it – Yahoo!, Facebook or both.

Now hit “Share” and it gets posted where you want, including Facebook!

See Facebook profile photos when people email you: With this feature, you will see people’s Facebook profile photos – if available – anytime someone emails you.  In addition, by clicking on the profile image, you will go right to that person’s Facebook page.

Now, whether you want to send an email, IM, or update your Yahoo! or Facebook status, you can do it all from your Yahoo! Mail inbox. This integration of Facebook is just the start of how we plan to make it easier to do more right from Yahoo! Mail. Watch this space for more ways you can bridge your social worlds and Yahoo! Mail in the weeks and months ahead!

If your account is not showing the Facebook integration yet, don’t worry.  This feature is being rolled out gradually and soon it will be available across everyone’s mailboxes!

Happy Easter!

Tasla W. – Yahoo!7 Mail team

Make your own snowman and send it to all your friends and relatives

You can share it on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!7 Mail, Yahoo!7 Messenger or copy the link and paste it wherever you please.

You will also find that Notepad and Calendar have been moved to the Applications box for your convenience.

We are truly excited about what the future holds and we can’t wait to add even more apps for you to choose from! Stay tuned for more apps to further enhance your email experience and make you even more productive within Yahoo!7 Mail!

Happy exploring,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

Keeping you safe while you’re online is a top priority for us here at Yahoo!. One important part of your online safety is making sure that nobody else can access your Yahoo! Mail account without your permission, and the best way to do that is to make sure you choose a good password and make sure nobody else knows it or can easily guess it.

know it can feel like a pain typing out a more detailed password, but none of us want to make it any easier for the bad guys.

My top advice is to be mindful of any Web page that requests your Yahoo! password. The #1 way people get their passwords stolen is by typing them into lookalike “phishing” web sites, pages that pretend to be Yahoo! or another trusted Web site but actually are run by the bad guys. Scrutinize carefully any page that requests your Yahoo! password. In addition:

• Make sure the Web page address doesn’t have any misspellings or extra words (e.g. http://www.yah000.com, http://www.yahoo-members.com, or http://www.yahoo.BadGuyEnterprises.com) in it. When it doubt, go straight to http://www.yahoo.com.au and log in from there.
• Be vigilant about anything that doesn’t look right on the page, such as typos, outdated content, or broken or missing pictures.
• Best idea: be sure to set up a customized “Sign-In seal” picture — instructions are located here — and never enter your password unless you see that picture on the page.

Here are a few more tips to help keep you safe online:

• Don’t use the same password on multiple sites. Your Yahoo! Mail account is important to you, so it deserves its own password. That way, if the unthinkable happens on another site, at least your Yahoo! mailbox remains secure.
• Never send your password over email. Yahoo! will never request your password from you in an e-mail; if you ever receive such a request, you should treat it as fraud. Do not pass “Go!” Instead immediately click the “Spam” button on that message.
• Protect yourself with a virus scanner. Another way passwords get stolen is from a virus that records your keystrokes. Don’t give the bad guys that option: There are a number of anti-virus companies that offer free versions or trial offers, including (in no particular order and with no specific endorsement implied) http://security.symantec.com , http://usa.kaspersky.com/downloads/free-virus-scanner.php, http://us.mcafee.com/root/downloads.asp?id=freeTrials, and http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html.

Unfortunately there is no silver bullet against these criminals and con-men, but hopefully these tips will help us all keep the bad guys at bay.

Mark Risher – Spam Czar, Yahoo! Mail

You may have heard or read about email accounts and their passwords being posted online. While I’ve read different versions of how the person(s) responsible was able to get the email account information, it was not a result of any insecurity at Yahoo! It looks to be a result of phishing attacks. Should you feel that one of your email accounts was affected by the recent publication, whether it is a Yahoo!, Hotmail or Gmail account, I would suggest changing your password as well as other account security information like secret questions and alternate email addresses.

We are aware that a limited number of Yahoo! IDs have been made public, it’s uncertain if any of those email/password combinations have resulted in any accounts being compromised. Online scams and phishing attacks are an ongoing and industry-wide issue and Yahoo! takes great effort to protect our users’ security.

We also have the following online resources that provide information and guidelines on email safety:
Our anti-spam site: http://au.antispam.yahoo.com/
With a phishing prevention sub-section: http://au.antispam.yahoo.com/phishing/
Our help pages: http://help.yahoo.com/l/au/yahoo7/mail/yahoomail/abuse/
And of course, I’ve posted a number of articles about online safety to this blog: Spotting phishing emails, how to spot online scams, avoiding the lottery scams, and account recovery help

Here are a couple FAQs that provide additional information:
Have accounts been compromised because of this?
We are unable to confirm whether accounts have been compromised at this time. However, we strongly suggest that consumers take caution in securing their email and other online accounts by regularly changing their passwords, and updating account security information.

What do I do if I think my account has been compromised?
You should change your password immediately. Also, if you are unable to enter your account, you can take steps to recover it here: https://edit.yahoo.com/forgotroot

We take online security seriously at Yahoo! We strive to make you and your Yahoo! account as safe as possible. Of course if you have any questions or issues with your account, please contact our Customer Care team.

Please rest assured that Yahoo!7 will never email you asking for your password. If you receive such an email that looks like it’s from us, please be sure to pass it on via this form.

The following blog posts, that we have previously written on different security issues, may also be of interest to you:

• Tips for Spotting Online Scams
• Be Wary of Supposed Lottery Wins
• Log in securely with Sign-In Seals
• We will never ask for your password

Email safely,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

The following announcement comes Sarah Bacon, Product Manager for Yahoo! Messenger:

Warm up your webcams because the all-new Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta has arrived! This latest release is full of great new features. Without further ado, here’s what you’ll find inside:

High-quality video calls
We’ve completely redesigned our 1:1 webcam feature (under the hood too). Now you can make a high-quality video call to a friend with synched audio, right in the IM window. Features include the ability to swap video windows, position the video windows side-by-side, mute the call or place it on hold. You can even go full-screen with your video call. To get started, click the new “Video Call” button in the IM window.

Note that the friend you video call has to also be on Yahoo! Messenger 10. And these video enhancements are just for 1:1 video calls; broadcasting your webcam to multiple viewers (with no audio) has not changed.

New “Y! Updates” view of your contact list
People are busy these days, doing all sorts of interesting things online. To help you keep up with your friends, we added an alternate view of your contact list that shows a real-time stream of their updates, including Messenger status message changes. If they’ve opted-in to share their updates via Yahoo!, you’ll be able to see what they’re saying on Twitter, listening to on last.fm, and more.

Just like in the regular contact list view, you can easily IM a friend, start a video call and more, right from the Yahoo! Updates view. Or use the contact action bar to quickly find a friend without switching tabs.

We also added additional features for how and when you see your friends’ updates. When a new update comes in, a “toast” alert will pop up in the lower right corner of your screen. If you want to disable these, go to Messenger > Preferences > Yahoo! Updates. You can turn alerts on and off and even update preferences by contact or by type of update.

Download Yahoo!7 Messenger 10 Beta.

Find more to chat about
Within the new “Yahoo! Updates” view, you’re sure to find more to talk about with your friends. To make it easy, we added a hover menu that lets you quickly IM a friend about their update. When you do, the update appears inline in the conversation window, so when you start your IM with “I can’t believe you said that!”, your friend will know what you’re talking about. Note that your friend needs to also be on Yahoo! Messenger 10 to see the update inline.

New ways to sort your contacts
We added a couple new ways to organise your contact list. First is by recent activity which will list your friends with the most recent updates at the top of your list. We also added the ability to sort by availability, so if you usually show all contacts in your list whether they’re online or not, this will help bring the online friends to the top. Sort options are located in the drop down menu on the right side of the “Contacts” tab.

New icons in the IM window
We also added new icon designs to the toolbar in the IM window, and you’ll also find specific buttons for video calls and voice calls.

As with any new release, we welcome your feedback about what’s working well for you and what’s not. After using Yahoo! Messenger 10 Beta for a bit, go to the Help menu and select “Send Feedback” to get started.

Download Yahoo!7 Messenger 10 Beta.

We hope you enjoy it!

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Wow, that’s a lot of new features!

Our team here in Australia, and the other Messenger teams across the world, have worked long and hard on the new version of Messenger. We hope you find the new Yahoo!7 Messenger experience better than ever

Be sure to come back and tell us your favourite feature!

Happy chatting,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Messenger Team

Firstly, we bring you the following announcement from John Kremer, the Vice President of Yahoo! Mail worldwide:

Over the past nine months, we’ve made some significant updates to Yahoo! Mail, making it more productive, more social and helping people stay better connected to those who matter most – but we only provided access to these new capabilities to a small group of you as we ramped up the features. Today, I’m excited to say we are bringing new and dynamic social functionality, third-party apps, enhanced photo sharing plus many more new features to all of your inboxes worldwide…yep, all 300 million of you!

Here’s what we are rolling out starting today:

A Streamlined Design:
First, we’ve swept away some of the ‘clutter’ to give you more space for what matters most to you. You’ll notice that we’ve moved your Calendar and Notepad apps into a new area called Applications, beneath your folders. The Applications box also includes the third-party apps, like Edit Photos by Picnik, PayPal, My Photos by Xoopit and Big Sender by Zumo Drive, that we started testing back in December. These apps allow you to organise and share photos, be more creative and be more productive.

You may also notice, we’ve removed the ads from the left hand column of the new Mail. This gives you increased space to view and manage all of your folders and applications.

A Better Way to Attach and Share Photos:
We recognise that sharing photos is a big part of what you do in Mail. So we’re introducing a better way for you to attach photos (and other files of course). With our new attachment feature, you will be able to drag and drop photos into your emails, upload multiple attachments and even upload whole folders at once. You will also be able to view thumbnails and rotate your photo attachments before sending them to your friends and family.

In addition to this, we’ve increased the attachment limit from 10MB to 25MB. Now you can share more of your photos at once. Coupled with unlimited storage, this means you never have to worry about where to keep your photos. You can keep them in your Yahoo! Mail for as long as you like.

More Social Features:
Users of both Classic Yahoo! Mail and the New Mail interfaces can take advantage of the new social features on the updated ‘What’s New’ page. And with hundreds of millions of people starting to participate in this social email experience, it can really get interesting. You can now stay up-to-date on what friends and family are doing online, and view the most recent emails from your contacts. Soon you’ll even have the ability to receive birthday reminders.

We’ve been listening to your feedback and know that you love the updates on the ‘What’s new’ page. Of course you have complete control to choose what to share by managing your updates.

Now for the Timeline
As with all of our releases we want to make sure that people around the globe continue to have a reliable Mail experience, so we will gradually roll out features out over time. The first users will start seeing these new features today and we will continue to roll them out to all of our Mail users over the coming months.

For more information and to read about other exciting changes at Yahoo! check out these posts from Yodel Anecdotal and our colleagues on the Search Team and the Messenger Team.

Well there you have it from the horse’s mouth so to speak!

Be sure to come back and let us know what you think of the changes

Happy emailing,
Kate – Yahoo!7 Mail Team

A couple of months ago, we told you that we would be retiring Yahoo! Messenger versions 6.0 through 7.5 this August. Well, you have a bit more time as we have pushed this out until early September.

This means that if you are currently using a version of Yahoo! Messenger that is below 8.0, you will no longer be able to sign in and use it after the retirement date in early September.

Option 1: Download the latest version for Windows
You can use Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 which offers enhanced security as well as better protection from spam (info | video demo | download). It was even voted the best overall client in the 2009 About.com IM Awards. 9.0 also includes more advanced features like PC-to-PC calling, photo sharing, as well as the ability to IM with friends that use Windows Live™ Messenger.

Option 2: Use Yahoo! Messenger for the Web
If you can’t use the latest version mentioned above, you can always sign in to Yahoo! Messenger for the Web from any web browser. No extra download or installation is required. With our web version, you can send IM’s as well as some of the other great features. Our web version also includes anywhere archiving, allowing you to access your message history from any computer or browser. Try it now at http://au.webmessenger.yahoo.com.

Option 3: Use the built-in IM feature in Yahoo! Mail
Both versions of Yahoo! Mail offer a built-in feature that lets you send and receive IMs. If you’re using the all-new Yahoo! Mail, just click the status menu next to your name in the upper header and change your status to “Available”. This will sign you into Yahoo! Messenger (you also have the option of staying invisible). IM conversations occur in separate tabs within your Mail page.

In Yahoo! Mail Classic, you’ll see a module on the left hand side of the page labeled “Chat & Mobile Text”. Click on the status menu in that module to change to “Available” (or Invisible). IM conversations will show up in a small box in the lower right corner of your Yahoo! Mail Classic page (but it won’t interfere with your Mail messages or using Mail).

As an alternative, there are also solutions available for your mobile phone. We recently launched Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone and additionals versions are available for other mobile handsets. Find out more.

And remember, no matter what version you migrate to, your contact list always goes with you. As the date gets closer, we’ll remind you again here on the blog and provide the final date for retirement.

Thanks,

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager