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Yahoo! Mail Superior to Gmail ?
ynotme writes "In his column, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal writes that the new Yahoo! Mail beta provides a superior webmail experience to Gmail. Some quotes: 'The new Yahoo Mail is far superior to Gmail. Yahoo more closely matches the desktop experience most serious email users have come to expect ... Gmail has none of these new, fluid, desktop-like features ... Google's engineers have decreed that familiar email practices are no longer useful, and have substituted approaches they prefer, arrogantly denying users any choice.'"
The new yahoo mail looks like outlook, but it's more annoying since it's isn't as useful (no newsgroups). I much prefer gmail, the interface is fluid, intuitive and comfortable, and it's oh so pretty! I don't think copying the look of e-mail software should be the next step for webmail.
While it seems a lot of advanced users on Slashdot seem to love being derived of features by our Google overlords (more in response to Google Talk than GMail), the plethora of features in Eudora were the most appealing reasons I still use it and I'm glad WSJ is recognizing Yahoo for its new interface and features.
Whenever I checked my mail remotely in the past with either Yahoo or GMail, I would always reminisce about how fluid the process was at home with Eudora. Scanning email by opening new pages for every email with old web interfaces was quite frustrating, even with GMails quicker load times. The new web interface on Yahoo is actually making me consider finally leaving Eudora.
So, I for one am glad to see Yahoo head in the direction of both panes and continuing to focus on adding useful features (and unlike some products, doing it without ads or clutter). Improving the initial load time would probably be enough to get me to make the transition.
The new yahoo mail has drag and drop.
TAKE THAT GOOGLE
Does Yahoo mail let you use an interface like gmails? Or do they 'arrogantly' deny us that choice?
So basically what they're saying is that Google is being innovative instead of being a trend follower?
If I remember correctly Gmail came out almost 2 years ago. What would be more surprising is if Yahoo mail did not have a better engineered GUI. In 6 months or less Gmail will be better than Yahoo and the cycle will begin again.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
but no one else delivered.
* A nice user interface that is very responsive.
* Web-based.
* Auto-complete/tab-completion of email addresses.
* Ability to search my email.
* Advanced sorting and rules. I can place my mail subscriptions into different labels and archive them for later.
* Reliability. Gmail is much more reliable than previous hosts. My mail is delivered and I receive my mail.
* Group email threads together.
* Mail filters.
* vi-like keyboard shortcuts.
You can also use any of your normal programs (thunderbird, outlook (shudder), etc) to access it Gmail.
/. were more than ads for one service/program/etc over another these days . . .)
Yahoo! mail does not have this feature.
So if you've always liked your Netscape Messenger . . . you can use it, with Gmail. You don't need to get used to using a web browser to read your email.
*shrug* Frankly, I use PINE, so I couldn't care less.
(Meanwhile I'd really appreciate it if the articles on
Does Yahoo mail have or plan to implement free secure POP access like gmail has?
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
Log in to your Yahoo! Mail account and click What's New. From there you can sign up for the Beta, and they'll eventually upgrade your client. It's a random beta.
Google's engineers have decreed that familiar email practices are no longer useful, and have substituted approaches they prefer, arrogantly denying users any choice.
Well, you could always.. not use Gmail? Isn't that considered a choice?? Or will the arrogant Google engineers come beat you if you use Yahoo mail?
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
...arrogantly denying users any choice.
Well they have the choice to use a different bloody email service for one.
C17H21NO4
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This sounds like some of the critisisms that Linux software devs/power users get a lot of, being elitist, arrogant and not giving users a choice etc. Besides the original article being a troll, it's overlooking the main point: If you like yahoo's interface, go with yahoo, if you like google's interface then go with them. They're both free for chrissake... Same goes for linux apps too, and while gnome are a bit arrogant about the whole spatial nautilus thing is true, you can allways choose not to use it, like I do. Nobody is telling you what to do!
Hey, GMail open it's SMTP for me and my outcoming mail... Does Yahoo! do the same ?
I far prefer Google mail .Perhaps it is that I have become use to the interface .
I find it simple to use , it has ample storage , the interface is perfectly useable and takes little effort to learn .
The search functionality is also rather good and very useful .
"The new Yahoo Mail is far superior to Gmail. Yahoo more closely matches the desktop experience "
Though I must ask , Which desktop is he referring to , certainly not mine .
" Gmail, by contrast, is quirky and limited. Its only advantage is its massive free storage, which exceeds what most people will ever need."
Well I don't find google quirky , everything does what I would expect . That to me is not quirky
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Touché!
C17H21NO4
While my features may not be much to look at under normal conditions, once you take the 1st derivation of my features, I start to become quite the looker. Around the 3rd or 4th derivation, well, all I can say is "move over Brad Pitt!"
The only thing is, since I started trying to integrate myself back to my original look, I keep getting one that's real close, but something's just not fundamentally exactly right about it...
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I'm getting quite annoyed at GMAIL saying "Ooops... pls try again"...
Of course, hotmail is horrible, but Yahoo has always at least been consistant in this area.
I've never had Yahoo mail time out or not respond.
I've been using Gmail for over a year now. Before that I'd used a variety of webmail programs including Yahoo and Hotmail. I've found that Gmail has some very nice features. Yahoo also includes some nice features. However, none of this inherently makes one service "better" than another. If Yahoo's interface and format is easy for me to use, then Yahoo is the "better" service. If Gmail is easier to use, than Gmail is "better". We can argue about who's better until the world ends. I perfer to pick the one that matches me and let every one else do as they will.
Well Im not sure that it is invite only still. If it is, i would assume they havent hit thier critical mass (whatever that number may be) The way I figured it was that the invite only was a zero-cost advertising program that was run entirely by the customers. If you like it, you would invite your friends. Once they reach xxx # of users then they would open it up to be without invite. Kind of a social enginering type thing. See how well we spread without a drop of $$$ in advertising. But hey who knows I am probably way way off.
We admit all this to insure disbelief
The author makes the accusation that google are 'arrogant' by throwing away common email metaphors, and one of them is the common 'folders' practise that just about every mail system except google uses.
However, I think Google's way of doing things is FAR better. Folders is great, it allows you to file your mail away in a flat or hierarchial organisation. however, it DOESNT easily let you file a mail in TWO locations, unless you make a copy of the mail, and that in itself is really awkward.
Applying labels, or some kind of keyword system, or however you want to call it, is in fact a far more natural and flexible way of doings things, and I fully intend to apply that idea to a few other projects I'm working on, where 'file away into nested folders' was the original way of doing things.
So... perhaps Google needs to play a little catchup, but Google's idea of 'labels' instead of 'folders' I think is far superior.
The author of the article, with his accusations of Google's "arrogance", is really letting his "must put google down at all costs, because it's the cool thing to do" attitude really show.
you're joking right?
....
who in their right mind would give their cell number to google....
they'll use their Google Earth technology to locate my cell phone,
use their Google Images search technology to find out who I am,
then they'll Google ME,
they'll use Google Maps to find directions to me,
then they'll do experiments on me in Google Labs,
then, then,
profit?
ahhh!!!!
google is taking over
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So will the new Yahoo! mail interface also increase it's spam blocking? I was a Yahoo! mail user for years but as soon as Gmail was opened to private invites, I grabbed an account and to this day can count the number of spam emails that I've received on half of a hand. And I use and put my gmail address everywhere -- on all my forms and contact info.
Until Yahoo! can implement spam blocking anywhere near Gmail, I will be sticking with my "1 optioned" email site.
Does yahoo allow me to search through emails? Does it have text only ads for the free version?
You can right-click on various items to see short menus of useful tasks, like "add sender to address book."
Doesn't gmail automatically add every sender to the history? when you compose a new message you can just start typing the address and it will show you the email address. Isn't that easier than manually having to add?
And there's no preview pane, only a feature that shows a snippet of the content of an email.
Showing the snippet IS preview! How much more do you want to see ?
It forces you to view all of your email in groups of related messages called "conversations," instead of viewing them individually as they arrive.
Tell me why would i NOT want to see the messages which are part of the conversation?
But i have to say tabs in messages by yahoo looks cool!
* Saving your e-mails in conversations ( an incredible concept)
*Works stable on all browsers ( I'm not sure if anyone else noticed buy yahoo doens't play well with opera)
*2 gigs of space.
*pop access
*and most of all simple.
I switched my mom (not computer savey) to google and she picked it up in seconds. People need to learn more bells and whistles doesn't always equal better.
The author comes across being very emotional and too judgmental for me to take the review seriously. Why was it even necessariy to add the arrogant bit? Oh right! That's the common sterotype Google has on Wall Street. I forgot! No doing a traditional IPO and not taking themselves too seriously apparently runs counter to Wall Street traditions so Google is automatically arrogant. I guess then all innovators are in a sense arrogant because they refuse to do things the same way it has been done.
I work in the finance industry but some of the narrow minded people who work there makes me want to puke. If trying new ideas and being innovative are arrogant, then I hope everyone is as arrogant as Google is. On one hand, Wall Street throws out terms like "think outside of the box" but on the other hand some elements hates change. Take this quote for example:
By contrast, Gmail has none of these new, fluid, desktop-like features.
Uh... hello? This is WEB mail, not desktop mail? Maybe things aren't all the same in both realms? My Gmail is fast as hell and gets the job done. I go on there and answer my mails as needed. Then I'm out of there. Total time taken is usually under one minute. That's how I want it to be.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
I agree. The connected Yahoo Calendar, Notepad, Briefcase, etc. make Yahoo much closer to an Outlook killer than GMail does. I actually use 75% of their integrated stuff. I even use their music, shopping, etc. because it's integrated so damn well.
Does anyone have a screenshot of the yahoo interface or a link to one? I'm willing to look into it because my gmail account is getting a fair amount of spam that the filters aren't catching. I just don't want to sign up for something unless its worth my time.
If the new Yahoo mail is better than Gmail, then google will have to improve their offering. Webmail service was a pretty stagnant cesspool until google stepped in. The preexisting providers (Yahoo, MSN, et al) were far too happy maintaining the status quo. A webmail provider war can only be good for us consumers. Yay capitalism.
The Yahoo! ads, as pointed out by this blogger, really are quite bad - GMail doesn't even come close to having objectionable advertisements.
Google's interfaces (for email and in general) have the advantage of being pretty simple and non-bandwith-intensive. For those people on slower connections, an interface with whiz-bang drag-and-drop bells and whistles will invariably be noticibly slower than a clean mostly HTML-based interface like Google's. I hate Hate HATE Flash websites for the same reasons.
-b.
I am troubled by the title of the post: Yahoo! Mail Superior to Gmail ?
I know 90% of people here dislike microsoft more than google. There is also an obvious bias against all-thing-not-google (which includes Yahoo!). But do we need to be biased even when we are submitting a story?
"Yahoo! Mail reported Superior to Gmail" seems more balanced.....does anyone else agree?
Google's engineers have decreed that familiar email practices are no longer useful, and have substituted approaches they prefer, arrogantly denying users any choice.
Yea, it's a shame they shook up the whole "search engine result sorting" thing too. Bummer that didn't work out for them.
-brain
GMail's primary feature is space. Frankly, I don't care for the interface. Deleting mail is problematic. I've found stuff I've removed show up. You move stuff to Trash, empty Trash, and expect it to be gone. They have no real filtering. Folders are basically non-existent replaced with labelling that difficult to follow. Thank goodness you can attach via a pop client. That being said, I use it.
Seriously, I am a die hard Google fanatic but I still use Yahoo mail because it is very good. Gmail is not bad, but is still isn't Yahoo mail.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Pretty much everyone has 100 invites these days. I got the impression that the invite system was designed to keep the percentage of completely clueless users low in the early days when they actually wanted to hear from the users... Possibly also as a tool to keep growth of the system manageable so they don't suddenly need 1 billion 2 GB mail accounts in a week. It probably also helps limit automated signups. I could also be wrong though.
The only thing is, since I started trying to integrate myself back to my original look, I keep getting one that's real close, but something's just not fundamentally exactly right about it...
Did you remember to add a constant?
Based on his comments in the article, he just seems pissy because GMail works differently than the mail client he is used to, and he isn't given an option of working the way he wants.
One clear indication of this is: he complains about having labels rather than folders. Labels are essentially the same thing as folders, except labels allow you to put the message in several labels/folders. The only difference is how they are stored in the filesystem, which is irrelevant in a webmail environment. If they put folder icons on his labels, I bet he would love it.
He also complains about the "Conversation" view of e-mails (threaded view). I like the conversation view. But, I can see his point that it should be an option (even though I still think threaded/conversation view is a better way to use e-mail, because it allows for better context).
He complains about the ads in GMail, which cannot be turned off. Okay.. I guess that's a point. If it used large distracting banner ads, like Yahoo! Mail, I would want to turn them off too. But, the small text ads in GMail blend in and don't distract at all.
There is certainly room for improvement in GMail. But, Mr. Mossberg is a bit harsh when ranting about Google's arrogance for deciding they have a better way to do e-mail..
Really, the only good reasons to use gmail is the 2.5GB of space and [like any webmail] you can check it from anywhere. But there's one more excellent reason - pop3. With gmail, you don't have to stop using Eudora. You can use gmail's decent interface when you're not at your computer, and otherwise use the same email client that you love.
:). NZ doesn't support pop3 for free members anymore, so I had to find something else. I had heard about gmail a while before, but who really cares about searching through your mail? Besides, if I needed to, I could do that in OE. But when I was looking at the site, I realized they had free pop3. HOLY DAMN.
That's the only reason I made a gmail account. I wanted to keep using (don't throw things at me... please) Outlook Express. I used to have a NetZero account ONLY because of the free pop3 email access, screw getting online with it
I hate web interfaces. I'm on dialup. I don't want pictures and an interface to have to download every time I check my mail - I just want the mail. Thus... gmail via pop3. It's worked marvelously for me so far.
Kinda strange, most everyone I know who has moved to gmail says they can't imagine how they used yahoo mail in the past after using gmail.
Personally, I like gmail alot. It's a really fluid system and is well designed with the user in mind, about the only thing I really disagree with is the sign up method if you don't get an invite.
Shadus
Mostly because of one important feature, which is AddressGuard. Sure, both Yahoo! and GMail spam filters do a nice work. However, that is a "new" approach and it's what makes me not to receive any spam at all. You have an explanation here:
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools?tool=3
And a Flash animation/tour/explanation at the end of that page.
Sadly, I use Google not because it's the best, but because I have a long memory -- and I remember VERY WELL YAHOO how you guys screwed us with your two megabyte/ten megabyte limit. Yahoo will not get my business again, no matter how much Gmail might frustrate me.
CUSTOMERS HAVE LONG MEMORIES YAHOO!
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
While it seems a lot of advanced users on Slashdot seem to love being derived of features by our Google overlords (more in response to Google Talk than GMail)
Eh, I don't see how GMail deprives anyone of anything. You like Eudora? Fine, use POP3. You like Outlook? Use POP3. You like Thunderbird? Use POP3. You like Yahoo Mail? Use POP3 to download your GMail to Yahoo.
What's nice is I get all that without having to pay for an upgraded account. Plus, I have the convenience of also being able to read my email using any web browser anywhere in the world, derived of features notwithstanding.--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
Yahoo! can add all the features they want, all the free disk space, all the spam protection, a slick web interface, etc. Until I can send and retrieve my Yahoo! mail from a POP3 or IMAP interface FOR FREE like I can on Gmail, it's not better than Gmail, at least not for me. I was using Yahoo! mail for over a year before they turned off their free POP3 access. I don't blame them, but that's why I switched to Gmail. Then Gmail activated free POP3 FTW.
I am more worried about usability and accessibility of the webmail than its look. WebMail was meant to have a quick access, wherever you go, whatever system you have. I guess the new Yahoo mail interface will be much slower, will eat a lot more system memory and more error-prone. What will happen if I open that webmail in new IE version, or in Firefox, or in Mozilla, or in Konqueror, or in Netscape, or in Opera... And when a new browser version is released? What will happen if I use a Pentium 233 with 32MB of RAM? Will I be able to access it easily even on a 56K dial-up? And if I have disabled the right-click detection in my browser JavaScript options? And if I have a one-button mac mouse? I don't like these complex AJAX "systems". Sometimes I wish people have the "KISS" (Keep It Simple, Stupid) concept in their minds.
But more than that, I have to say advanced filters are key to webmail for me. I can route the spam that comes from free newsletters right to the trash. Out of principal, I previously would unsubscribe from the obnoxious newsletters that don't allow you to separately unsubscribe from their spam, but with gmail I never see the "special offers." There are quite a few decent letters I'm much happier to be subscribed to now.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Hey, to each his own. I'm glad homeslice raved about Yahoo Mail. I just logged in for the first time in AGES and took a look at it and it's lovely. Really, it is. It has ads in the mail body, as always, which sucks. And the interface is a bit busy, with ads and offers and this and that.
:)
But I like the Bulk folder and this interface is clean and nice and all. And I can understand people who don't like the archive, conversation and label metaphors being pissed about Gmail. Like I said, to each his own.
Oh, and let's not forget what else Google did. They went to 1 GB of storage when that was unheard of. And now Yahoo Mail has that, too.
So life is good on the free, web-based e-mail front
RP
I think that more importantly than this application itself, this development could start a chain of improvements to the web interfaces of many online sites. Online brokerage companies like ScotTrade could provide users with much better interfaces, with live quotes, ability to drag stocks between panes, or the ability to alter different data on the screen (like moving some money here, and getting out of a stock there) to see the effects in real time, with no static HTML, available from anywhere
So even though Outlook might not be your mail client of choice, this should be supported as it could be the start of a good trend.
Thing like...
- Yahoo! lets other companies that show advertisements on some of our pages set and access their cookies on your computer.
- Yahoo! collects personal information when you register with Yahoo!, when you use Yahoo! products or services, when you visit Yahoo! pages or the pages of certain Yahoo! partners, and when you enter promotions or sweepstakes. Yahoo! may combine information about you that we have with information we obtain from business partners or other companies.
- Yahoo! collects information about your transactions with us and with some of our business partners, including information about your use of financial products and services that we offer.
I hate the way the gmail people wont allow MSIE to store the password. Don't give me crap about its insecure - its none of your damn business if I want to store it! Jerks.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Goowy mail is pretty good. You don't have to beg for an invitation, it offers both a really cool Flash version and a stripped down version for low bandwidth connections (You select which one you want at log on). It doesn't have ads (yet) and it even has news and games if you care to click on their icons. It's a credible effort.
Insert witty sig here.
I'm dying for Google to add calendaring and real file storage (not just uploading your files in emails) and a more complete address book with mail groups, etc.
I still love Gmail, use it every day. Love the POP access, love the SMTP access which keeps copies of your sent mails sent through any normal desktop email client. And I love the threading that keeps my replies with the responses. I'm sticking with Gmail and waiting out the missing features. They'll come. But the experience is already better for me than Yahoo! mail.
You've been here long enough you should know better than to be surprised. :-) One could take a bowel movement and post the details on Slashdot and it will get modded "+5 Insightful" as long as it's one of the first posts. On the other hand, you could write the next "Principia Mathematica" as a response to said first post and it will be modded "-1 Troll" if you don't praise open source in the first few sentences.
I've submitted that as a feature request, um, maybe 3 times. Nothing yet, but perhaps if we keep bothering them, it'll come to pass. It's a shame, too, 'cause gmail is pretty cool otherwise. I'll pass on the "desktop experience", if you don't mind. Unless somebody would care to introduce the "BeOS desktop experience"... Mmm... Configurable boolean queries...
My Systems
With my [free] gmail a/c I can send/receive from my email client (Thunderbird, in my case): I never use gmail's web interface, except to change preferences. With Yahoo, I have only webmail; POP access comes only at the price of an annual subscription.
The advantages: I have a stable email address that's fairly well spam-filtered, and isn't tied to my ISP; I also get secure connections (with POP, SMTP, and HTTPS). Meanwhile, I don't have to turn on my main machine, and don't have to set up multiple mail clients, but can still get the benefits of old-school mail management while being able to access my mail from anywhere.
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
> But isn't drag and drop an Active-X component?
Not if its drag and drop inside of the browser. Then its just using DHTML. Dragging components on a webpage is not that complex to accomplish.
The point that was missed is that Google's GMail project was meant to test new ideas. Is it really a new idea to try to mimic Outlook's tired functionality within a web browser? Certainly not, Microsoft already did a superb job of that with OWA. GMail follows Google's UI philosophy to a tee and is nothing more or less than I would suspect from them. They are keeping thing simple by limiting options. That may emasculate some users, because they want to think that they're superior to everyone else and know the right way to setup an interface, but it's a good way to test some of the alternative ways of thinking that Google wanted to explore.
For instance, I had never really taken the time to think of keeping threads of email as a single object. The first place that I saw it was in GMail. After seeing that I really despise having to use Outlook at work with it's cluttered mess of folders. I had also heard of the concept of search folders and labels before, but seeing it in action I realized how much better it is to see, interact with, and think of each message as a single object with multiple attributes that link it to other objects. If I'm looking for an email that was recently sent to me with an image attached I can just click on the "Attachments" label that I created and see all of the messages with attachments.
It's time to put aside that gushing and look at why I understand his complaints. It's difficult for people who just think of email as email to objectify it to realize that GMail's interface is logical. I converted my wife, who almost immediately converted 20 or so of her friends, and she had some issues setting up filters for use with labels. Some of her friends just didn't get it and switched back to whatever they used before. Not the least, I understand the concept of not throwing away data when you have so much storage, but do I really want to have that thrown in my face every time I delete something that I don't want being there? I also wish that GMail would trim the original text of large threads, check the original document of a 100-message thread sometime.
Then again, this is Google so it is a beta project. I could also refute each of my points with someone else's opinion that they like things the other way. Nothing changes that GMail is extremely successful at changing the way it's faithful users think about their email.
Yahoo!'s interface sounds interesting, but I'm interested in knowing if it has what GMail does. Does it have good keyboard shortcut support? Does it treat email messages as one object if I try to organize it in two different ways? I know it doesn't have threaded viewing of messages (yet) but does it hide previous emails and quoted text and/or highlight quoted text in such a way that I can easily discern quoted from new (for those who like to reply to one paragraph at a time)? If not then shame on Yahoo! for not incorporating features that save me time and are well done by Google. For that matter, if they don't have keyboard shortcuts then shame on them for not incorporating an indispensable part of standard UI.
Is that I cannot set the encoding of the text I am sending so it's essentially impossible to use their web client to send email in a non-european char set and I end up using a 3rd party email client with their SMTP server to do it properly...Also some charsets dont even display correctly in gmail. I love the pics I've seen of Yahoo! mail and I hope it doesn't have the same problem(s) gmail has.
You know, I don't think Gmail really needs to offer the kind of options our author spoke about -- individual messaging, folder options, etc. Those are the very things I was trying to get away from when I switched. If I wanted a desktop e-mail program, I would use Thunderbird or Kmail. I wouldn't go looking to Yahoo!. But that's just me. About the invitations, they're really not that hard to get. Everytime I give away an invite, I get another to replace it -- and I'm not the only one. Hell, go into almost any chat room, find a gmail user, and just ask them at random for an invite. I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Google just did it to spark interest. People always want what they can't have.
"On the other hand, you could write the next "Principia Mathematica" as a response to said first post and it will be modded "-1 Troll" if you don't praise open source in the first few sentences."
If you did write the next Principia Mathematica chances are it would be offtopic.
evil is as evil does
POP3 SUCKS for webmail. You don't get any sync features, so forget about keeping your folders consistant accross computers. Forget about having folders at all, in fact, because POP3 doesn't support them.
IMAP is a much better protocol. Until GMail supports it, I'm sticking with FastMail.
Google's engineers have decreed that familiar email practices are no longer useful, and have substituted approaches they prefer, arrogantly denying users any choice.
The only "arrogance" that I see in this "debate" is Mossberg's. Google made available a high-quality web-based mail service based on AJAX and was the first to give users a gigabyte of space. The Gmail experience was closer to any desktop experience than any other webmail service. There were likely lots of usability experts and user testers involved in its development. And if it were for Yahoo! and Microsoft, we'd probably still limp along with 10Mbyte mailboxes and page redraws for each message view. And, yes, the Gmail experience is different from a desktop client. I fail to see how that "denies choice"--Mossberg always has the choice not to use it.
Apparently, Mossberg's 35 years at the WSJ have gone to his head and he has forgotten that he is a journalist, not a usability expert. It is supremely arrogant for someone with his background to make judgements about the usability or quality of applications. In fact, someone who actually knows about usability wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions.
Fortunately, we all have a choice: we don't have to read the ill-informed drivel Mossberg publishes in the WSJ.
...and I'm kinda disappointed that the WSJ's standards have spiralled so far out of control.
When you look at the facts, Yahoo is playing catch-up, and they know it. Google came pretty much out of nowhere and released a wholly unprecedented level of quality with gmail. While most, and probably all, other free webmail providers were little more than ad spots first and email clients second, Google provided a service that was incredibly powerful that happened to run ads the same way the rest of their site did. All of this was done in a very elegant, simple yet powerful interface hosted on Google's servers. It's only a rare moment where you get errors from Google servers. It's also only a rare moment where you see something shoddily hacked together from Google's engineers. It doesn't just work, it works very well, and damned near all the time.
Did I mention it's free and nobody forces you to use it? To use the word 'arrogant' to describe the free service that set the current precedent for service and design is laughably irresponsible. How the hell do you get to use such a loaded word with negative connotation towards the parent company in responsible journalism? You don't. The fact that this hack can get paid to write this crap astounds me more than the fact that he clearly doesn't understand a single thing that he's writing about. I mean, I could spend all my days writing about crap I don't understand, but I don't think I'd get paid for it. While I admire his ability to get paid for workplace incompetence, I have to admit that I am baffled by how he manages to pull it off.
I bet he thought he was really clever with other loaded phrases such as "Not Gmail, where 'option' is a term too rarely employed, except in reference to employee compensation." Yeah, great job, ass. Way to make a thinly veiled snipe at the fact that Google happened to find a way to become fucking billionaires giving you great service at no cost.
And finally, since I seriously have to get to bed, my proof that the author has no goddamned clue what he's talking about: "I'm sure Gmail will get better and better, and will eventually adopt the new programming techniques that allow desktop-like ease of use."
This quote just proves that the author doesn't get the point at all. Google has never been one to compromise functionality with form. Just go to www.google.com if you're not sure. The whole google design philosophy almost wholly forbids gmail to ever get to the point where it will adopt these "new programming techniques," and I don't think we can realistically ever expect them to, or even want them to. If Google were to cheapen itself to the point where it were simply copying other peoples' interfaces in order to please woefully uninformed tech writers, I think we'd be much worse off than if they'd just done things the way they always had.
I'm not going to make any statements about which is better between Yahoo mail or gmail. I'm also going to point out that both are free, and you should expect nothing more than to get what you pay for both. In the event that you are pleasantly surprised by how much functionality you get out of a free service, you should be thankful. If you're into Yahoo's interface, use Yahoo. If you prefer Google's interface, use Google. Neither is going to be "far superior" to the other for all people as all people have different needs and preferences.
As for the people who keep hacks like this employed, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
-c
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
No, but the great-grandparent forgot to add a consonant.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face