Yahoo Mail SMS…Orkut Mobile Scraps?

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Yahoo Mail SMS…Orkut Mobile Scraps?

(By James Quintana Pearce on MocoNews)
Yahoo is updating its e-mail client, and among other things is the ability to send free text messages to a mobile phone number from within Yahoo Mail. This service will work in the US, Canada, India and the Philippines in real-time, although only on certain carriers (which will be published in the Help pages of Yahoo Mail). Of course, the people receiving the messages on their phones may have to pay for that, and to reply via SMS. Yahoo is also adding instant messaging capability to Yahoo Mail (such as Google has) which will allow access to Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. Perhaps more impressively, people will also be able to “easily convert their e-mail messages into IM chats or switch to a text message dialogue with the click of a button, when friends come online or go mobile, and vice-versa”.

Nikhil adds: A credible source also informs me that Google India is currently working on incorporating mobile features to Orkut, particularly mobile scraps. Indian social networking sites had done that quite some time ago, but none has a userbase as big as Orkut. I guess that means more scraps with SMS lingo..ugh.

Nikhil Pahwa Aug 26, 2007 11:40 PM ET

Posted In: Mobile, Social Media, Companies, Google, Yahoo

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hi,
how are you?

chellam

1 year ago

hy chaitanindia you chat me

chaitanindia

NowPos Online Services a small IT Research and Application Development company has developed a mobile advertising Application called "Beep" has launched in Hyderabad as test market with Airtel as its service provider. To get that application one should send a SMS to 52288 and download the application in return they are getting 100 min Airtel to Airtel talk time free every month till the application is live on his mobile. The concept is really good and i think it will be the first where the end users are benefited with such a VAS service.The Ad is not through message but image and text on the main screen and it appears without disturbing or beep.

Monis

life line yahoo!

j. das

yes, pondering on the privacy issue is important.

AMIT NARAYAN SHARMA

the best site for every thing ic rediffmail.

puchoo

i dont think i like that idea too much, i am currently also pondering on the privacy issue and how that might take a turn for the worse here.

sri vikas

google orkut scraps in mobiles sounds interesting but don't you think its going to very very irritating when you keep getting beep messages every time there is a scrap entry in your orkut profile?
at first it would look or nice and innovative and vogue to use mobile orkut scraps but if you are working or studying and if your mobile is gonna beep every time someone using orkut from net sends you a scrap, it will be very disturbing and irritating and hinder productivity.
i wonder if Google guys have thought about this issue?

vikas
www.mklix.com

rahul

and rediff followed suite…

rahul

i thought google was the first player to announce unlimited storage…

pptrue

Every one would be in eager to check their scraps to Know whether he/she has scraped me. Here is an end to that!!!

Read this article in http://techdoz.blogspot.com

funonthenet

Anshul…...looks like u work for rediff…or what ever it is…...or may be ur GF does and u r just trying to impress her….

Anshul

Yahoo’s new feature announcement of allowing users to send free sms from eMail looks like a plain marketing gimmick rather than an actual innovation. Yahoo has termed it as an enhanced social email experience. But let’s take a deeper look and understand this in detail.

The integration eMail and messenger makes sense as it allows users to keep in touch without having to bother about loading an additional application and chat within the same window, but extending it to mobile for sms is fundamentally flawed. If you analyze the usage experience of heavy internet users, the applications used for communication amongst the peer group or the social group is actually moved from eMail to scraps and IM. Heavy users primarily use email for sending attachments and not for short messages.

Now short messages or sms which are meant for mobile phones are more suited to be integrated with Instant messenger or scraps which allow you to have two way communications and are meant for sharing short messages which rank the highest in usage amongst heavy users. But using eMail to send SMS which is only one way is not a very convenient way to communicate.

Yahoo may find very few people who will actually buy this new feature as innovation for the reasons stated above. This looks more like a desperate move from yahoo rather than innovaton. Besides this Rediff has been offering free sms through its messenger for a long time now and this facility is also available through eMail but its charged. Obviously Rediff guys have their fundamentals right because any users who wants to use free sms will use IM as the task is more suited for the application, rather than eMail unless there is a specific need for which Rediff is charging.

Additionally Rediff was also the first player to announce unlimited storage on eMail and Yahoo followed them. I think Yahoo can learn a lot of lessons from Indian companies who are giving them a tough fight and should quickly get their act together and end playing the marketing gimmicks.