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Yahoo! Responds!

Posted by Mark Wyner on December 18, 2007 in Email Client News

I find it truly amazing how responsive the folks at Yahoo! have been to many of the articles/posts I have written. They are actively involved in community discussions and receptive to notes about how things can be improved. This time, they respond to our call for standards-based email clients.

What strikes me profoundly is that while they have been ranked among the best performing email clients (regarding support for web standards) they are still unsatisfied. They want to support 100% of our recommendations, and for that they have my applause. Oh, those over achievers.

We reported that Yahoo! Mail (both New and Classic) supports our entire list sans list-style-image. Brian Goodman of the Yahoo! Mail team contacted us to report that they believed their client did indeed support that property. As we discussed possible variables which might be altering the results on various platforms, etc., we discovered that the problem actually resides with a shortcoming Yahoo! Mail has with CSS shorthand. As it turns out list-style-image is supported while list-style is not.

But most seasoned web designers use shorthand because it saves time and bytes. Especially in the email environment where every byte is valuable. The folks at Yahoo! Mail could have shrugged their shoulders and walked away, satisfied with their level of support. But they decided that support for shorthand is important and are going to do something about it.

I am happy to report that Yahoo! Mail has responded to our call! They are going to dig into their application, find the source of this deficiency and crush it. Yes, folks, with one of their future releases Yahoo! Mail will support 100% of our recommendations. When we see this come to fruition we will report the news, so stay tuned.

Thank you, Yahoo!

105 Comments so far

Adam Covati said...

That makes me rethink my client of choice! It’s currently gmail, one of the worst in the bunch.

It’s great to hear that the major clients are paying attention. I think many of them have been waiting for an independent group to establish some kind of standard.

Had any one of these companies come up with a yardstick on their own it would have been hard to convince others to measure themselves against. The ESP has provided the unbiased test that was needed. Kudos again - and thank you, this is already proving to benefit commercial emailers and their recipients.

Posted 3:03 pm on 18 December 2007 - #1

That is awesome news.

We are one step closer to achieving our goals. Great news for the few months online, if you ask me!

Keep up the great work, ESP!

Posted 5:59 pm on 18 December 2007 - #2
Lee said...

Good to see the project is working, especially in such a short space of time.

I use Yahoo myself, for my BT email, and find the application really nice, refreshing and easy to use.

Posted 6:20 pm on 18 December 2007 - #3
Flumpy said...

Great to see one of the bigger players taking an interest and responsibility/

Now we just need someone from Gmail to pick up the baton!

Posted 10:40 pm on 18 December 2007 - #4
Snx said...

Yahoo has always been ahead of the pack for email client features since day 1.  An account that doesnt expire in a few weeks of non usage was always my fav.  I practically dont even need to check to see if my emails work in Yahoo… 100% of the time!

Posted 1:45 am on 19 December 2007 - #5
Mark Wyner said...

Thanks for the support, folks. It certainly is nice to gain the attention of a company like Yahoo!. My experience with them has always been productive. They’re attentive and friendly, and have produced a really nice product.

Posted 1:49 am on 19 December 2007 - #6

Thank you Yahoo! I hope others will follow suit and work to improve their products as well. A team like this that is willing to jump up and fix problems so quickly deserves our respect.

Posted 2:16 am on 19 December 2007 - #7
Scott said...

Way to go gents!  Hopefully the Google Machine will catch wind of this and want to exceed what Yahoo! is doing.  When they start losing users they will respond - I think.

Posted 4:42 am on 19 December 2007 - #8
Lance Fisher said...

That’s really cool.  I’ve been increasingly impressed with Yahoo over that last couple of years.  They bought flickr and delicious, and their whole YUI JavaScript library is really cool.

Posted 7:36 am on 19 December 2007 - #9
Sung Choi said...

This is really good news. I’ve had my doubts on the big companies actually taking time out and responding to this great effort. I hope the other companies follow suit, soon.

Posted 8:19 am on 19 December 2007 - #10
Andi said...

Sorry, off-topic, but I’m getting this message when trying to subscribe to your RSS feed:

XML Parsing Error: no element found
Location: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EmailStandardsProject
Line Number 1, Column 1:
^

Posted 9:19 pm on 19 December 2007 - #11

Ok, sorry for posting this here but I was unable to find an easy way to get a contact section/email.

Old this standars song and you’re not using <labels > for the checkbox in this form!

Posted 9:13 am on 20 December 2007 - #12
Dave Greiner said...

Andi, thanks for letting us know about that. I’ve just etsted it in a range of browsers and RSS readers with no luck. I’ve also checked with FeedBurner and everything seems to be purring along nicely. If you (or anyone else) spot the issue again, please let us know.

Juan, nice spotting and thanks for letting us know, that’s been fixed now.

Posted 11:42 am on 20 December 2007 - #13
Matt Radel said...

That’s awesome! Kudos to ESP and Yahoo!

Hopefully the Gmail team is listening....

Posted 3:10 pm on 20 December 2007 - #14
coxy said...

It’s good to see Yahoo! are looking to improve their standards support. I’m still quite upset about the ‘new beta’ of Yahoo! Mail which is really slow, bulky and unstable on Opera.

I think they took the wrong direction with the new beta, I would’ve prefered to see an AJAX’ed up Classic version; but not in the way they’ve done it.

Also, Yahoo! need to roll out a new version of their calendar services. They really suck at the minute compared to competitors. Urgh.

Posted 10:13 pm on 20 December 2007 - #15
Jed said...

Kudos to Yahoo! for listening to the community.  I’ve had my yahoo Email address since they first made them available, and it just keeps getting better.

I agree that the new beta of Yahoo! Mail is a little slow, but I love the interface and functionality so much more than the Classic version.  I like the speed of Gmail, but in general I have my subscription-based Emails coming to Yahoo!, because I have found that they render better.

Posted 12:44 am on 21 December 2007 - #16
Jed said...

Odd, I just tried to Digg this post by submitting the URL manually - and I received the message ‘This link does not appear to be a working link. Please check the link and try again.’ Tried multiple times with the same result.

I found the following at the Wordpress Support forums: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/146375.  Check the response near the bottom by Otto42, regarding a modification to the whitelist file that must be made to the ‘Bad Behavior’ plugin in order to allow someone to Digg your site.

I’m not sure if this is the problem - feel free to delete this post if it’s not relevant or the problem gets resolved.  I just wanted to make you aware.

Posted 1:06 am on 21 December 2007 - #17
Chris McKee said...

Gmail may be one of the worse clients in the list but it is by far the superior client in comparison to Yahoo… for starters it doesn’t take a life time to load as it crams flashing adverts in and it also doesn’t stick adverts at the end of my emails.

Still they all need to pull their finger out and get up to standards, then maybe I can spend a little less time recreating emails in html 4.0 and a little more time making websites.

Posted 1:07 am on 21 December 2007 - #18
John Faulds said...

@Coxy: yeah, I gave up using the new Yahoo mail on Opera and went back to using the old version.

Yahoo’s reaction to this is certainly commendable but not really surprising when you think of the amount of work they do in other areas that is freely available to other developers - grids, YSlow, YUI etc.

Posted 10:14 pm on 21 December 2007 - #19

That’s great news!
I keep being more and more impressed and surprised by yahoo. They seem to really care about improving their services for users. I do have a yahoo account, but lately have been using gmail more. News like this makes me contemplate a change back!

Posted 10:20 pm on 21 December 2007 - #20
chris said...

Having used Yahoo since 2002 I’ve been consistently happy with it, and now I see why. Commitment.

Just goes to show its not that hard really… Time for google to come to the party?

Posted 10:55 pm on 22 December 2007 - #21
Drew said...

Nice to see Yahoo! step up to the plate and respond.  Baby steps in the right direction is all it takes… Great work!

Posted 3:29 am on 27 December 2007 - #22
Paul said...

Fantastico! Hopefully everyone else will be (slowly) coerced into delivering.

As developers and avid internet users us raising the profile of the project, and persuading clients, friends and family to leave certain clients (e.g. Gmail et al) in the dust will help make them listen. Think about the way Firefox took off.

Posted 12:48 am on 29 December 2007 - #23
Zeb said...

That’s great going! I believe that gmail will jump soon as the big players start following the standards.

Posted 1:38 pm on 13 January 2008 - #24
Liu Leren said...

Within the Netherlands a very small amount of people use Yahoo email. They would do good to do some research about this fact: in other words listen to their customers.

Because Google is so responsive, Yahoo is losing ground. Good thing that they are taking your comments/critics serious. Lets wait for the results ;)

Posted 1:48 pm on 18 January 2008 - #25
yahooo said...

this week microsoft offered to yahoo for buy. that’s very bad for google.

Posted 11:17 am on 06 February 2008 - #26
yahooo said...

Yahoo To Turn Down Microsoft Bid
Yahoo is set to reject Microsoft’s unsolicited bid, now worth $42bn (£22bn), as too low, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Saturday—the first clear signal the board might be prepared to negotiate and sell the Internet media giant.

Posted 9:00 am on 20 February 2008 - #27
biomedical24 said...

yes. Thank you, Yahoo!
my first e mail adress is in yahoo. but yahoo not populer now.i think it’s fist reason is hotmail’s msn

Posted 9:18 am on 22 March 2008 - #28
tabela said...

Good to see the project is working, especially in such a short space of time.

Posted 7:43 am on 26 March 2008 - #29
istanbul said...

Thank you so much that kind of projects make internet more secure and comfortable.. Done great job

Posted 7:51 am on 26 March 2008 - #30
article good said...

Great work. Nice to see Yahoo. step up to the plate and respond.  Baby steps in the right direction is all it takes.

Posted 10:37 am on 27 March 2008 - #31
pirlanta said...

Hope everyone notice about these kind of subjects…
Done great

Posted 7:45 pm on 27 March 2008 - #32

yahoo is improving her services. It is getting easier, faster and more user friendly. they are doing good

Posted 10:54 pm on 29 March 2008 - #33
Mark Wyner said...

@ everyone with great things to say:

Thanks for your kind words about our project. We put a lot of hard work into this and it’s nice to see that it is appreciated. Not only by web designers but also by the email-client developers who have contributed their efforts in improving the email environment for everyone.

@ home improvement loans guy:

Is Yahoo as bad as Hotmail? Yahoo is a really excellent client. The GUI of the new version tends to be a little slow on occasion because of all of the AJAX add-delivery. However, it is usable, full of nice features and properly renders HTML emails.

Posted 3:24 am on 29 April 2008 - #34
Mark Wyner said...

Sorry, you’ll have to make that decision on your own. They each have features that cater to different people with different needs. I was simply pointing out that Yahoo webmail is a good client and probably shouldn’t be put on a “is it worse than” list.

Posted 5:41 pm on 29 April 2008 - #35
ev said...

thanks. I think they took the wrong direction with the new beta, I would’ve prefered to see an AJAX’ed up Classic version; but not in the way they’ve done it.

Posted 7:18 am on 05 May 2008 - #36
Costumes said...

I am beginning to use Google for everything, Email, Google Checkout when I shop, Google alerts on things I like. I noticed today that you can even place TV advertisements through Google. I am going to give Yahoo mail a try an see the comparison.

Posted 2:06 am on 07 May 2008 - #37
vinç said...

I use Yahoo myself, for my BT email, and find the application really nice, refreshing and easy to use.

Posted 6:19 am on 07 May 2008 - #38
SEO Expert said...

Wow… Yahoo! rocks i love it and it’s really work like a charm.
it’s deliver my emails instantly… why would i pay for an email if i have Yahoo!
Thank you.

Posted 12:23 pm on 24 May 2008 - #39

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Posted 7:37 pm on 18 June 2008 - #40

Yahoo! does have amazing customer support even for the free services. I’ve also enjoyed them calling me up to discuss a variety of problems I’ve encountered. But, even with their good customer service, many of their services are still lacking. For example, yahoo mail. My yahoo email box is so spammed, I’ve completely given up on them and have switched to google.

Posted 4:26 pm on 21 June 2008 - #41
calypso said...

I agree with you completely.

Posted 4:33 pm on 21 June 2008 - #42

yahoo is great but I am getting too much spam, I noticed that if paid for their paid service the spam is less

Posted 6:31 am on 22 June 2008 - #43
twizl said...

I usually don’t use my Yahoo account, it’s so filled with junk mail in my inbox, currently gmail gives me the best soultion.
but it’s nice to hear that a big company like Yahoo is trying to hear her costumers.

Posted 6:17 pm on 23 June 2008 - #44
kpss said...

thx

Posted 7:05 pm on 24 June 2008 - #45

yes you right

I usually don’t use my Yahoo account, it’s so filled with junk mail in my inbox, currently gmail gives me the best soultion.
but it’s nice to hear that a big company like Yahoo is trying to hear her costumers.

Posted 1:14 pm on 26 June 2008 - #46
Anders said...

Yahoo! Mail will support 100% of our recommendations - my congratulations, hope its will not slow new version Yahoo Mail on-line interface

Posted 7:36 pm on 26 June 2008 - #47
Malathi said...

I am not able to read my inbox mails. i.e. It is not allowing to open the message.

Posted 4:06 pm on 27 June 2008 - #48

I think it’s great to hear that a big company like Yahoo who try to hear her costumers. But their serch enginge is far behind Google now.

Posted 1:18 am on 28 June 2008 - #49
bayrak said...

thank you so much nice

Posted 7:39 am on 28 June 2008 - #50
jenerator said...

thanks for support

Posted 7:55 pm on 02 July 2008 - #51
pimapen said...

I believe that gmail will jump soon as the big players start following the standards too..

Posted 7:59 pm on 02 July 2008 - #52
clearpores said...

Yahoo has one of the best customer services, except their products just aren’t that great..

Posted 10:24 am on 05 July 2008 - #53
oyun oyna said...

Well maybe they can beat G in support..because they don’t stand a chance in anything else :)

Posted 2:01 am on 16 July 2008 - #54

In my country (the Netherlands) Gmail and Hotmail are market leaders. After reading most the comments above, I wonder why Yahoo is not popular here. Regards Annemarie

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Posted 1:02 am on 25 July 2008 - #68

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Posted 2:06 am on 25 July 2008 - #69

I do not care for the new yahoo email interface. i think Yahoo is running into a lot of issues recently. At least it is good to see that at one point in time they were responsive to the community at large.

Posted 2:20 am on 25 July 2008 - #70

Excellent writeup. Yahoo tends to restrict a lot of coding and other items. they say that it is for securoty purposes. but i believe that they make these restrictions because it is easier for them. Thanks for working with them to make a great change in their service.

Posted 2:24 am on 25 July 2008 - #71
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Eduturca said...

I preffer to use gmail but after reading the comments on this thread and the other documentation, I am not sure anymore about gmail. What I like the best about gmail is that it let’s me track my articles that I have posted in articles directories, everytime someone picks up my articles and posted them on their sites, I get a message to my gmail account (you need a small script to make this work)

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This is really a good news. When it comes to Email features then Yahoo is always no. 1 from the beginning. It will remain same.

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Posted 11:07 am on 06 December 2008 - #84

In my country (the Netherlands) Gmail and Hotmail are market leaders. After reading most the comments above, I wonder why! Yahoo is not popular here. Regards Annemarie

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Posted 9:16 am on 12 December 2008 - #86

Big changes coming to Yahoo.  We’ll see if the same respect for communication is practiced once they are bought.... TBC

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