Will yahoo mail become another gmail?

[jeffpan]

Marissa Mayer is the CEO of Yahoo now and once was Gmail's product manager IIRC.
Will yahoo mail become another gmail? I hate now time's yahoo mail, it's tumid, experience worse.

[chuckster]

why not ask her on twitter.
https://twitter.com/marissamayer

[drew]

Would she not only reveal what is already announced?
Why would she share secrets before they are official?

jeffpan it is not easy to know. They must have some
economic reason to hire her. She is most likely has
the instruction to make them more profitable.

So you could be right that she will use what she learned
from within Google on how to make money for Yahoo too.

What exactly that means as changes in how Yahoo works?

I am sorry I have no clue on it. But compare with FaceBook
and Gmail having stricter control over that one are true about
ones identity so that maybe is what the Advertisers that pay
them wants to be changed for to trust that their ads really
reach real persons and not bots? That the clicks on the ads
are real clicks and not a bot going round and clicking on them

So maybe they would ask for our mobile phone number too?

I only wild guess.

[Tsunami]

What is the reason why she left her previous employer? Maybe she was unhappy with the policies and therefor wanted to continue her career in the same field but with a company whose terms and ethics were closer to her personal ethics?

At this point, and until an official statement comes in, all assumptions are just wild guesses. I don't think Yahoo users should start panicking, and await an official announcement. Maybe, other than the names in the company management team, nothing concrete will change. It's all guessing now. If there would be any changes noticeable for the users, an official statement should normally follow.

[William9]

Personally, I would welcome some changes to Yahoo! mail, some more Gmail-like. For example, Yahoo!'s ads are obnoxious, in my opinion, and really detract from the users experience. I think that Gmail is the most functional, fastest service out there. It's a pleasure to use.

[mailboy]

If you do not like ads, there's always the paid option (which I use)

[B4its2L8]

Originally Posted by mailboy

If you do not like ads, there's always the paid option (which I use)

Or the Webmail Ad Blocker (by Jason Savard) for FF and Chrome.

[Tsunami]

Originally Posted by William9

Personally, I would welcome some changes to Yahoo! mail, some more Gmail-like. For example, Yahoo!'s ads are obnoxious, in my opinion, and really detract from the users experience. I think that Gmail is the most functional, fastest service out there. It's a pleasure to use.

What about the data mining?

I must say I like Gmail interface-wise, I like the dialogue/conversation based email chains, the fast search engine, the log of previous log ins (although they should keep those data shown no matter how long ago the last session), the long inactivity limit and high storage space (although Outlook.com seems to have the same terms more or less now) ...

So I am not entirely anti Gmail. There is however the unsettling idea that there is data mining going on, and I don't actually like the idea of a company using my data for commercial reasons. I can understand police doing some data mining in some circumstances (not just randomly on any person!) but the type of data mining Google does is not exactly giving peace of mind. Other than that though; purely in terms of easy to use and neat interface, it is a good service indeed (if you try to forget the data mining for just a moment ...)

I am unsure of what Yahoo does for data mining and if the change of board members would have any impact on their service. I would guess not, because someone with a history of working for Google is likely to know the stuff their users disliked. And thus unlikely to import those features in her new corporation?

[William9]

It's my understanding that most companies try to benefit from data and advertizing when it comes to free services like email. I think Google has been able to excel in that area. There is a difference between data and privacy.

[Tsunami]

The moment you out the data about someone, privacy is gone. The difference is only as long as the collected data don't leak or aren't published.

I am looking for a new email provider and I take my time to ask around for opinions to make the best possible choice, one doesn't constantly change address after all. But I will make the change and it will be a paid service if necessary to get rid of the concerns regarding data mining for commercial purposes. Maybe "concerns" sounds like I got something to hide, which is not the case. However, it goes against my ethics that the type of data collected is used as a commercial good. Then I rather pay a provider so that he doesn't have to please advertisers to keep his service stable and running.

Also, I consider support very important. Gmail only has support for paid users and they're far from cheap. That is another reason why I would opt for paid service unless there is a support team available for the free alternative (which exists only with a minority of services, eg Safe Mail, EUMX, one time I even got a response from Hotmail...)

[B4its2L8]

Originally Posted by Tsunami

Gmail only has support for paid users and they're far from cheap.

Yes, and the question would be whether Google still mines data from the premium users. I haven't bothered reading Google's policies on this regard, but from the standard comparisons of Google Apps' free and premium version, there's no obvious statement to the effect that paying users' data is not mined by the big "G." So how much privacy is that $50/yr buying for GA users ?

[just1acc]

Originally Posted by Tsunami

So I am not entirely anti Gmail. There is however the unsettling idea that there is data mining going on, and I don't actually like the idea of a company using my data for commercial reasons.

The part I like about Google in this field is that..

1. At least I can see how much data they have taken through DASHBOARD.

2. Till now, Google hasn't got hacked by third party unlike Yahoo etc. Though there is no guaranty about 'how long'.

[guillaume]

Will yahoo mail become another GMail?

Hopefully not ! Gmail has been quite sluggish those past two years for me. It's probably the slowest webmail i've experienced.

I do hope she forces the team to clear out all the bugs. Yahoo! has some cool features. The built-in search is very nice and powerful for people who do not necessarily know how to perform a boolean query. The built-in photo app is nice as well

2. Till now, Google hasn't got hacked by third party unlike Yahoo etc. Though there is no guaranty about 'how long'.

Hum really ? Gmail was just the primary target of some Chinese hackers not long ago if I reckon well

[William9]

In my opinion, Yahoo! free email is caught in a time warp. Intrusive advertising, mediocre performance of email functions and sluggishness are some of its characteristics. The social features seem to me that they were just tacked on in an attempt to be contemporary. I find them of minimal or no usefulness. Compared to Gmail or the beautiful new Outlook.com, it's behind times. Yahoo! would have to devote more resources and years to catch up to Gmail, which I consider the benchmark in functionality and speed. Yahoo! customers would welcome such improvements.
I actually prefer targeted ads. I would rather see an add for a good price on a PC (which I'm interested in) than an add for Pampers.

[guillaume]

I'm having a hard time understanding why people keep saying Gmail is super fast.

It's been utterly sluggish for me for a long time. It takes forever to load. and I find it bloated Yahoo! Mail is quite buggy indeed but it's loading very fast for me. And I have the same amount of emails in both, they're all in sync