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Yahoo! Acquires Oddpost
weiyuent writes "We all know the arrival of Gmail has initiated a new round of competition amongst the major webmail providers. Well, Yahoo! has acquired Oddpost and will be integrating Oddpost's amazing interface to strengthen its offerings. One might wonder though how to reconcile Oddpost's MSIE requirement with Yahoo!'s (thus far) cross-platform approach. Oh well, at least it will likely put an end to Oddpost's exasperating attempt to be cute in their communication."
An IE-only interface and an integrated news client (like the one included with my current provider's webmail) when all I really want is for Yahoo to give me IMAP. I'll even pay for it, as I do with my current provider. I would switch to have Yahoo's nice interface.
POP3 is soooo 1990's.
Google is good at what it does: searching and newsgroups with a few other potentially useful things.
Yahoo is good at what it does: news, yellow pages, maps, tv listings, movie listings, etc.
I use yahoo primarily for 'book' information, and google as a search engine.
oddpost is currently a subscription service if i read correctly. will yahoo change all those subscriber accounts into free ones paid by advertising revenue?
Based on Microsoft's recently move to compete in search engine, I wonder why it doesn't do more in Hotmail? Does it think it has secured enough user base to ignore new comers?
:)
Oh by the way, if Google has gmail, MS introduce hmail, Apple gives you imail, Sun introduces jmail...
One might wonder though how to reconcile Oddpost's MSIE requirement with Yahoo!'s (thus far) cross-platform approach.
This is easy to remedy: Microsoft acquires Yahoo!
MSFT could kill 3 birds with one stone - they could force all existing Yahoo! Mail users to use IE, they would gain a significant market share in the search engine market (against Google), and they'd get Oddpost as a bonus (not that Oddpost is terribly exciting).
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Looks a heck of a lot like Outlook to me. I didn't know Slashdot posters were in a habit of flattering Microsoft developers.
I took a look at the link to Oddpost, but I'm having trouble seeing what exactly is so amazing about their e-mail interface. It looks like a low rent outlook clone.
Anyone want to take a stab at explaining to me why Oddpost is so amazing?
Odpost was pretty cool, a recap of its highlights...
1) not a lick of advertising - Not any more
2) accessible via POP & IMAP - Not any more
3) send & receive large attachments - Not any more
4) staggeringly effective spam filtering - Not any more
5) Insert your favourite feature here - Not any more
You could learn alot from Google, and i'm not talking about waiting for them to try something new and then replicating the exact concept.
Maybe when you can finally see past the screw-the-end-user-give-me-money mentality and try taking a risk every once in a while and maybe giving the consumer what they want, you'll find that there is money to be made.
How about some innovation, rather than rebadged ideas that someone else took a chance on.
here is a well hidden but useful feedback link:
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/my/cgi_feedback
Yahoo does listen to suggestions, it just takes many iterations and time.
Google bought a photo management firm today, meanwhile Yahoo! Photos changed its disk space restrictions to unlimited quite a while ago.
"... and an unparalleled interface with the speed and ease of us..."
They don't evan have a scroll bar on their home page... i wonder if oddpost webmail interface has a better design.
Hardly surprising that Yahoo have done something like this really... after all, the "quick and easy" way of trying to compete with GMail when you have that much money, is obviously to just find something similar and buy it ;P
I do wonder about the suggestion that Yahoo is in any way cross-platform though. Especially considering the recent protocol change (reported on Slashdot) to lock out third party messenger clients like Trillian and Gaim. They are yet another proprietary company, so they'll design their system to run as *they* like, and if you don't want to adhere to it, tough.
In saying that though, Oddpost has only *just* been acquired, and it says on their page that they are only starting to develop the merge between their service and Yahoo! Mail, so there is more than ample opportunity to ensure all browser compatibility before the main roll out. Whether they do or not remains to be seen, but I would hope they would take the recent announcements about the insecurity of IE, and the recent 1% loss in market share into account, and ensure that their service will be more universally accessible than it's current incarnation.
Is also now available on yahoo.
Which is great, I can now go weeks at a time before emptying out the email account I use for google groups( the networking people at my job don't even know what usenet is, let alone how to set up a usenet server ).
Steve
Mary-Kate Olsen nipple pict
I think most people have thusfar been impressed by the gmail GUI (I have, even though I've submitted a number of suggestions to Google for how to make it better)...
/. so I'll mention Opera as well) will have better standards compliance as a consequence. Note how it's mostly the less-used and more esoteric areas of standard compliance where (today) one finds most of the inconsistencies...
If Yahoo begins to offer a richer client experience for email users, then it won't be long before many more people start wanting to use both sites with a variety of browsers, and soon both IE and Mozilla (this is
Amazing magic tricks
Yeah, this interface looks just like Outlook or a million other email clients, for that matter. I don't really see why Yahoo needs to acquire this company to get the rights to use this kind of standard design. It's a little unusual for webmail, but it's certainly nothing original.
I have to say that although I normally LOATHE webmail interfaces, that Oddpost interface looks really good. Maybe I'll go back to Yahoo.. or not. Y'know, whatever works.
- Code Dark
...the msdn interface. In fact, I'd bet it is the same thing. There is an ie behavior called treeview.htc that creates a tree from transforming XML. I used it last year at an ie only shop to create an interface. It is no longer supported by Microsoft, but it's pretty easy to work with the source. I can't believe Yahoo didn't have developers that could create an interface like that one. It's not that hard if you use that behavior. But it is totally incompatible with computers for people that use good operating systems/browsers. I'm writing to you from a nice new PowerBook running OSX/Safari :) (and my little sony srx-99p runs Fedora Core 2/Mozilla)
Matt - Didn't want to wait to sign on
strange that Yahoo! did this...it's odd even.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
A clone of a standard 3 pane interface - wow. I think many of us could write something similar in an evening.
Personally, Gmail's interface is much more revolutionary. It really uses DHTML in some very slick ways to make your experience faster. Even incorporating many keyboard shortcuts. (Except CTL+ENTER=send unfortunately.)
Until now Linux has never been supported with the service per se, but it has always worked well even though they officially use a proprietary PPPoE connection. I just signed up for another year's contract and I am going to be quite upset if I have to use WINE or VMWare just to change my prefs. We'll just cross our fingers that the POP3 access will still be left intact.
"The truth is where the sculptor's chisel chipped away the lye" --They Might Be Giants
Let's play video games with mailmanZERO
In the span of one week. I get 2 gigs of space with yahoo (I pay), a gmail invite, and this happens.
The irony is that I've had the yahoo for years and I'm forwarding everything to my gmail account (I at least have to try it). Plus, I'm due for renewal at yahoo in about two weeks.
Part of me says keep the yahoo...I've had it longer. Of course, the labeling and searching with gmail is nice.
Maybe I'll keep both and keep passing the yahoo over to gmail.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
the cool thing about Oddpost was that it was a central location for all your emails and a news feed aggregator. what I didn't like was the IE-only requirement.
Come on, I hardly see how asking what others find so amazing about the interface was flamebait. It was intended to stimulate a discussion of the interface, and nothing more.
But lets face it. The web browser is a really crappy place to work. RSS is a really interesting use of a hybrid web / rich client technology and that's interesting. Web Services are cool, but nearly unusable in their complexity if you go beyond time & temperature toys -- but the IDEA is right. Anyway, GMAIL is less impressive to this of us wierdo's who got hooked on NOTES years ago (yes, I know its bizzare to code for and feels weird if you're not used to it -- but so does PHP and PYTHON -- but its amazingly cool if you know how to make it do its thing). If Yahoo & Google fight it out for best UI bragging rights, we'll see innovation. Both companies are good at that.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Oddpost has stated that they are working on cross-browser support right now.
Check the Oddpost tech logs for proof of Microsoft rebustness...
Why doesn't oddpost work with anything other than Internet Explorer?
I don't get it. I can see how it's annoying if you can't use something you've heard is cool. But it's not evil. I'm all for cross-platformness, but I also don't see the harm if someone wants to take advantage of some kick-ass functionality that exists in IE5W and no where else
What was the cause of that service problem?
IE no longer rapidly leaks memIE no longer rapidly leaks memory when sending message after message after message. Or at least leaks much less.ory when sending message after message after message. Or at least leaks much less.
And that other service problem?
Yesterday we resolved the MyDoom-related problems with account login and outgoing mail
And that other service problem?
After many long hours of toil, we've modified our systems to deal with the surge in email traffic caused by the MyDoom virus.
Say again?
Yikes, looks like we spoke too soon. We're still dealing with an onslaught of mail from the MyDoom virus. We'll continue to post updates here.
How your IIS servers doing?
Oddpost's performance degraded steadily over the month of November. This was primarily due to a memory leak on our IIS? servers
MS loving twats...
In other words, porting it is not simply a matter of porting to a different dialect of javascript, CSS, and the DOM.
Therefore, Mozilla/Firefox, should have an extension and plugin that provides the same functionality required by Oddpost. Afterall, Mozilla users have already gone through the trouble of installing a foreign browser, so installing some good extensions is no big deal. Since Yahoo is very widely used, these nonstandard extensions would be very widely applicable.
The required functionality could probably be done using a java applet running invisibly in the browser whose sole purpose is to communicate with the mail servers. But this requires launching the java VM which is heavy. That's why a lightweight extension that mimics the needed IE 5+ functionality might be preferable.
All Google worship aside, Yahoo has a huge array of core services that have been live, (somewhat) debugged and ad-supported for five+ years. It will take Google a long time to build out a network to match.
Shut the fuck up
Microsoft clearly cannot develop the next generation of margin-growing services on its own, and I expect them to go on a buying spree soon. Shareholders are baying at the moon begging them to use their cash to get that stock moving again.
Why is it that the ongoing systemic outages on GMail are not reported here?
that google acquired a company today? http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/picasa.html
for a second my brain read "Yahoo Acquires Oddjob"
:o
That'd be scary
In this never ending Saga, can even SLASHDOT remain free of this coporate blood bath?
M@
Krispy Cream is people
it's hard as hell to write a nontrivial rich client with the existing web technologies.
it's even harder to write it cross-platform, which is no doubt why Oddpost has always been IE-only. Can't blame them given IE's 95% market share.
Benedict
Nehalemph-misc (at) Yahoo Dot Com
What a cruel thing to do on /.
When Bendedict just isn't enough, there's Mussolini. Osi Osi Noche Smart, Very smart. http://osiroticwisdom.8m.com/osinochecarro.jpg
Osi Osi Osi Osi Osi
- Will MS join the bandwagon and jazz up Hotmail (or provide a premium service) that does all the javascript funkiness (drag-n-drop, context menus etc)? They've already done this for exchange web access. If so, is that not kinda shooting desktop Outlook in the foot? Will they fall behind again on this New Thing due to their dekstop blinkers?
- Why do the funky interface thing anyway? A website is a website, and a lot more people are comfortable with the webforms approach to email, because it is a fairly engrained standard (e.g. their online banking is webforms based). Perhaps everyone is being led by the nose by GMail? Never! Fastmail is just one example of thousands of slick webforms-based webmails
- Besides, why not just use IMAP into your rich client of choice.
As a long-time Oddpost user, I have to say I was having qualms about Oddpost a couple of months ago. I've been trying to get off the IE bandwagon, and my questions to their (normally very responsive) support staff about Mozilla/Firefox support seemed to fall on deaf ears. I guess they were too busy doing the deal.gadgetophile.com
fastmail.fm is fast(no ads, except email tag lines), has lots of features (imap, advanced searching) and has worked in any browser I've tried (dillo, lynx, links). No need for javascript, no need for cookies and it still manages to work perfectly every time.
And for just 15 USD one time, you can have POP access and get rid of the tag lines.
As this dude says: If Oddpost is a clone of Outlook, how fast will Microsoft sue?
I mean it's pretty obvious that they're riding Outlook's popularity. Lifted straight from Oddpost's FAQ (emphasis mine): Oddpost is a web-based email and news aggregation application that combines the rich, responsive interface of a desktop program like Outlook with the available-from-anywhere convenience of a web mail service like Hotmail.
Seriously, if Oddpost is trying to do Outlook in the browser (errrm Exchange Web Access anyone?), and they were flying under Microsoft's radar before, then this deal will surely make Microsoft take a lot more notice.
[Disclaimer]I'm not saying that this is a Good Thing, just that MS might see it as an easy option to silence a competitor.gadgetophile.com
I don't see it as too amazing - I expect it took a lot of work to clone the Outlook interface using only web tools, but I don't think many people are that tied into the Outlook 'look'. If people want an email client, they can use one, but this, while being an interesting proof of concept, just looks stuffy to me, compared to the Gmail interface.
The Gmail interface is prettier, colourful and (as far as I know) is cross-browser compatible - people are just going to see this as a stuffy, broken (non-IE-incompatibility is becoming more of an issue with the amount of people switching over following the IE/IIS panic - it's not much, but it's there) and I don't think too many people craving that IE-app look in their webmail clients.
I used to have a Yahoo! Mail account and the interface was nice - it had a few annoyances but it looked good, worked almost as good and didn't have that insipid Microsoft grey (that even MS themselves are trying to get rid of as much as they can) that this interface has.
Interesting proof-of-concept, but I'm a graphics guy, I like things to look good - It doesn't interest me how much like a Windows application they can get a webpage to be - could be very good if they made it look a little less stuffy, but then wouldn't it just be another webmail client? As far as I can see the only thing that makes this 'Amazing' is the fact it looks like Outlook.
More 'interesting' than 'amazing', in my book.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
How is that an amazing interface? It's an imitation of a lackluster mid-nineties email client in HTML which doesn't even manage to be portable.
That interface could be hacked together by any competant web scripter in a couple of hours.
What am I missing?
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Remember a few years ago how the (cross-platform) web browser was going to make the Windows desktop obsolete? We all know how that turned out, Microsoft leveraged its "advantage" in the desktop world to the browser market. But I think MS made a critical mistake in freezing development of IE and waiting for Avalon. We are starting to see some real slick web-based apps that are as useful as local applications. I've seen people here complaining that Oddpost is just a ripoff of Outlook, of course it is, but that's missing the point. What's important is that you can now get a desktop-like experience in the browser that wasn't possible a couple of years ago.
I'm using Firefox 0.8 with the RadialContext extension. That's the pie menu replacement for the right-click context menu.
If I scroll down the page with the mouse-wheel and right click, the pie menu appears at the top of the page. I have to scroll all the way back up in order to use it. ie. The context menu placement is for some reason confusing window-relative placement with page-relative placement.
It's possible that this is a bug in RadialContext, although this page with its odd combination of presentation, scripting and style attributes is the first place where I've ever seen it happen.
IE has an option to use a WYSIWYG editor to allow a kind of WP entry for your emails. Can't do that yet in Mozilla/Firefox. It's a shame because I'd bet only about 5-10% of the DHTML needs to be ported.
Check out the link to access Launch from linux with mplayer http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/920
yes, it's an amazing interface. the amazing part is that it's done, and done well, in DHTML.
If you tell someone they are going to see an amazing interface, they're going to expect an amazing interface, not a standard interface that is an interesting achievement purely because of certain achievements under the hood.
Amazing job of replicating a standard interface in an unlikely environment? Yes.
Amazing interface? No.
Why does oddpost's interface look like my old POP3 client?
Or Outlook 97. Yahoo's interface is a little cartoonish and could use some help with color contrasts (it's tougher to read on certain crappy LCD monitors), but I still prefer it to what screenshots I've seen from Oddpost.
Lots of free porn there ...
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
...when they can't even write valid HTML?
I had posted this two days back.they didnt publish it on slashdot.now they are doing it.! :(
Yahoo escalated its newfound rivalry with Google by acquiring Oddpost, a San Francisco startup known for its innovative e-mail service. Yahoo confirmed the deal on Monday, adding that Oddpost technology would eventually be integrated into more than just Yahoo Mail.Oddpost staff will develop a new Yahoo Mail product .
Since yahoo revamped their email service to 100MB, I constantly bring up blank pages when I hit "Inbox", "Check Mail" or simply using the back function. Anyone else experiencing a few minor glitches?
What you are missing is that this is not a mid-ninties email client in HTML. It is a present day DHTML client.
If you had tried it out, you would know that means you don't have to reload the browser window to see your next message. You have access to shortcut keys, auto-compeletion and left & right mouse menus.
It is extremely difficult to get advanced DHTML to work, even if you are doing it exclusively on certain versions of IE. There are numerous browser specific quirks (read: bugs) specific to each DOM.
There is no way you could hack this together in a couple months much less a couple hours.
I think there's more too it than standards here (at least directly).
It's not that they're not using standard html code, it's the fact that AFAIK they're not really using html at all. They look to be using Html Application type stuff provided by IE, which makes it sort of like an applet crossed with the stuff outlook does with IE to run itself.
The only way to cross browser this is to build an API which uses IE hta, XUL in mozilla and DHTML in all else. Not impossible, and a fully cross platform API like that would make loads of developing easier.
I don't understand what you mean -- That's EXACTLY the way I talk, you insensitive CLOD!
I go to gmail...
period.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Existing Gmail users: Get over to this site and vote for the Gmail features that you want to see! The more votes the better, and the GMail team might actually be listening to it.
(Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the site, I just want to make sure Gmail trounces Yahoo features-wise.)
---- scrm
I was a HoTMaiL user before Microsoft acquired it. It was a fast, easy-to-use service back then.
I was deeply disappointed when it was acquired, but couldn't complain too loudly because it was, after all, free. But I vowed right then and there to NEVER rely on a free service for vital communication again. I learned enough *nix system administration to set up a mail server and register my own domain. I still maintain the Hotmail account as my "junk" account; it's convenient to have, but I wouldn't cry if they took it away.
I know now that my email preferred address will never change, and that the provider will never be acquired.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
I heard there are only two developers from oddpost and I wonder how much yahoo! paid for it, personally, I doubt it's any wise decision.
Is to /. the site.
Yep, it's refusing connections as of 5 mins ago
At least that page doesn't show the errors you and others describe. Mouse wheel, arrows and scrollbar are all there.
However I don't think the cool e-mail interface would work.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.