Yahoo! Mail Beta

Yahoo! recently invited me to try out the beta for their new mail service. Apparently, people have been using the beta for a few months now. Here's some reviews in case you are interested.

I've been using it for the past two weeks and I'm digging it. It's a little sluggish sometimes but that could be a result of all the feeds it's pulling. The whole thing feels more like a bona fide application with things being tabbed and with the preview window. Being able to drag and drop emails is also a nice touch. My favorite feature is the ability to read RSS feeds. You can see what I'm talking about in the picture below. It turns your mailbox into a robust communications hub for receiving and sending information of various types.

At this point my complaints are minimal. I'd like to see the calendar and the notepad become more integrated with the mail service. I don't know what shape this amalgamation would take but there is definitely potential there for these different services to interact more. Being able to organize your RSS feeds would be nice. Actually, the biggest problem I have with the beta is the fact that I can't scroll through the RSS feeds faster. The speed at which I scroll through web pages and emails isn't reflected in the feeds. If there's anything I submit feedback for, it will probably be that.

Oh, did I mention that Yahoo is offering email addresses with dots in them now. I jumped on that one as soon as I could and managed to get my first and last name. Booyah!