★ Interview: D.Mcdowell & G.Talon - Yahoo Mail Europe
One of the most popular services of the Yahoo! network certainly is Yahoo! Mail. That’s why I opened the Yahoo! Mail Group, a place where users can published their feedbacks and share tips and tricks with other users. During a Yahoo! event in London I had the occasion to interview David McDowell, Director of EU Communications Products and Gregory Talon, Product Manager for Yahoo! Mail in Europe. Can we hope of free IMAP one day ?
Please note that : I originally published this interview in French over at Clubic.com, one of the magazines I work for as an IT journalist.
- How many users does Yahoo! Mail gather worldwide and in France ?
David McDowell : In France, we have 6 million users and are holding the third position behind Hotmail and Orange. Worlwide we have 300 million users. We’re in the second place behind Hotmail.
- Are the new Yahoo! Mail features also implemented into Yahoo! Mail Classic ?
David McDowell : We have integrated the Connections feature but not the applications.
- Why not ?
Gregory Talon : Most of the users who choose the classic version of Yahoo! Mail are looking for something clear and simple. They don’t really want their experience to be changed. We decided not to add more confusion for them.
- Are you going to keep this classic version. Isn’t it odd to have two products ?
David McDowell : Yes we will continue to develop on Yahoo! Mail Classic.
- When are we going to get full IMAP for all mail clients in Yahoo! Mail ?
David McDowell : We have nothing to announce today but IMAP has become pretty much a standard. I don’t see why we would not offer it as well. It’s on our radar.
Gregory Talon : Actually we had several debates about whether we should offer IMAP or not. True Gmail offer IMAP for free but what people do not realize is that what’s at stake for Yahoo! clearly is different. We have twice as many users as Gmail. Also unlike Yahoo!, Google does not make money out of their webmail. They have nothing to lose. Their revenues still are mainly based on search advertising. In addtion less and less people use mail clients so we’re still wondering whether it would really be worth it. Right now we offer IMAP to a number of phone users and this is an area in which we’ll continue to focus our efforts. We worked hard to offer efficient and reliable push to those users who need to get their email real time.
- In Europe, POP-in and POP-out have become free options. What will become of the Yahoo! Mail Plus subscription ?
David McDowell : With Yahoo! Mail Plus the consumer does not receive any ads and many people do appreciate that, so we’re not going to discontinue it. But we do not have plans either to upgrade it.
Gregory Talon : Less and less people subscribe to this option. Nowadays people don’t want to pay for a webservice.
- What about mail attachments size for outgoing and incoming emails ? Gmail recently upgraded to 25 MB. Will Yahoo! follow that trend ?
David McDowell : With one of the new Yahoo! Mail applications, users will be able to send up to 200 Mb (refering to Zumodrive). As for pure mail attachments, we should also remain competitive.
- Who’s gonna be in charge of localizing those applications ?
Gregory Talon: The editors themselves will translate those applications. Not Yahoo! -
Yahoo! just bought Xoopit. Will this technology be natively implemented or will it remain as a third-party application ?
David McDowell : Since Xoopit just joined us, we might reinforce our common efforts on their technology and why not integrate it into other Yahoo! properties.
- Xoopit also exists as a Firefox plugin for Gmail and enables me to also scan not just photos but all kind of files. Is this feature also coming to Yahoo! Mail ?
David McDowell : I don’t know. Would it be relevant ? We’ll have to see what the Xoopit team think. Most attachments people receive actually are photos so…
Thank you
