Yahoo to phase out classic email in 2011

Yahoo Philippines officially unveiled this week a more streamlined version of its popular web email service, updating the classic interface which has remained essentially unchanged for 13 years. Last November 15, Yahoo Philippines launched Yahoo! Mail Beta, which prominently features integrated access to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It is also touted to be faster and more spam-proof than the Classic version that most people have been accustomed to for more than a decade. "Our goal is to be a facilitator and aggregator of content," said Isaac Souweine, Yahoo! product marketing manager for Southeast Asia. Souweine's sentiments echoed those of Yahoo's chief product officer, Blake Irving. "Online communication tools are an important part of people's lives —whether they're connecting with their friends and family, sharing pictures and videos, or keeping up on news across social networks," Irving said press release. Although still in beta, the new email interface is expected to supplant the Classic interface, the look of which has remained essentially unchanged since 1997. "2011 will see the phase out of Yahoo Mail Classic," Souweine said. He declined to give an exact timeline, but said that the new interface will be fully rolled out by the first quarter of next year. After this time, users will be gradually migrated to the new service. The migration is expected to be completed by the end of 2011. Until now, the Yahoo Mail Classic interface has always been an option for users even after the introduction in 2005 of an Ajax-based desktop client-like interface similar to Microsoft Outlook. Yahoo Philippines hopes that the new interface, with its integrated social media capability, will be a hit among Filipino users. According to a recent Gartner study, Filipinos are the most avid users of Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter in Asia. - GMANews.TV