NOTE: Nobody can get you into the Yahoo! Mail Beta with an invite. There is no open invite system. If someone offers you an invite, it’s either a trick or a misunderstanding on their part. They have no invite to offer you. If you want to get into the beta, the only way to get invited is the Yahoo! Mail Beta signup form. 

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It's been six months since Brad did a review of the new Yahoo! Mail Beta. To this day, it's one of the most visited and linked to posts on this weblog. That is testimonial to the high level of interest and excitement the Internet community has for this revolutionary approach to web-based mail. Another function of that interest comes from the amazing number of people who use Yahoo! mail. As of 2004, it's available in over 25 countries in many different languages and serves tens of millions.

The new Yahoo! Mail Beta is available to a closed group of Y! Mail accounts. Both free and premium Mail Plus accounts are included in the beta group. Y! Mail accounts through ISP partners like Verizon, SBC, etc. do not appear to be included in the beta group at this time.

For those familiar with web-based mail, the new version is a whole new user paradigm. Web-based mail has meant making selections and clicking a button and waiting for the next screen - a process repeated over and over. The Y! Mail Beta is more like a desktop mail application like Outlook or Eudora because you click on a folder and its contents appear in another part of the screen. Drag an item into a folder and it actually moves there. No page refreshes involved.

Although this is simply web properties playing catch-up with desktop applications, it still has a big "Wow!" factor for the user. These dynamics have rarely seen before in a browser window.

I won't repeat Brad's review in September but since then a number of new functions have been added. One Brad hoped for has been added - an RSS reader (this was simultaneously rolled out with RSS Alerts which if you haven't checked it out is worth a look). All the RSS feeds you have attached to your My Yahoo! page are brought together in a folder .

There are two ways to view your feeds. One way is to click the RSS folder once and items from all feeds will be listed chronologically, newest at the top and ones you already viewed are grayed to give emphasis to the unviewed ones. It even indicates when there's new feeds with a little yellow burst (see graphic above). The second is to click on the arrow next to the folder which will display a list of all feeds as sub-folders and then you can choose which feed you want to view. I personally like the first choice since it eliminates having to dig to find what I've missed since I last checked my RSS feeds.

While viewing RSS feeds, you have several action options for when you come across a notable item. You can save it to My Web or post about it to your Y! 360 blog (with the headline and link carried forward), forward via an email or print.

From the Little Things Really Matter File, you will note that your signature is intelligently incorporated into emails when composing or replying. It means everything to me that my signature already is in my email message body when I'm composing. Now I can tweak it when composing as the occasion may require. When replying, the signature gets placed above the message being replied to (as you would want it to do but never does in other web-based mail or even in most desktop apps). This keeps your signature out of the pile of orphans at the bottom of well-traveled emails.

The Y! Address Book is now referred to as Contacts and can be accessed directly through the Y! Mail Beta (as opposed to Calendar and Notepad whose original sites appear in another window outside of the Y! Mail beta). Clicking on the Contacts folder replaces the mail list display with a list of your address book contacts. Clicking on one brings up its details in the preview pane. Double-clicking brings up a pop-up window with all the fields available for editing.

When viewing an email from someone in your "Contacts" folder, you'll see anicon next to their name which, when clicked on, will display that contact's information in the preview pane with anbutton. A direct link to the sender's contact record ready for updating. If its not already in your contacts, then you'll see anicon which will open a new record for you to edit and save. That's got serious "Wow!" factor in it (not one to ever be pleased, I can hardly wait until this works in reverse - i.e. seeing related mail from a contact's record).

If you've used the newer search functions and search shortcuts in the original version you may be disappointed that they haven't been built into this version (and rumored is that they will not to be brought into it). But otherwise the speed at which mail is dredged out of folders and displayed using the search capability of the Y! Mail Beta is adequate.  Searching contacts is a drill down as you type function (to find Bill Adams start typing "B", "I", "L" and watch as all the Bills bubble to the top. Select Mr Adams from the group or just keep typing until he's the last remaining) that with my several thousand person list is sluggish but tolerable.

On higher levels, the ability to select all (hundreds or thousands if you want) emails in a folder and drag them into another folder on a whim puts all other web-based mail sites to shame. You are not limited to a maximum number of emails in a list as you are in other sites. Just keep paging down or jump to the end of the list. Click on the column headers and the lists automatically (and quickly) resort accordingly. Drag the column borders to change their width. Use your Ctrl-key and Shift-key to select more than one record as needed. Discard the preview pane to see more of your folder list if you want. The intuitiveness and flexibility is all there.

From the Unintended Use File, Need a web-based word processor (read Writely)? Compose to your heart's content in Y! Mail Beta and click the "Save Draft" button to save your work as you go. When done simply email, print or cut-n-paste into your local word processor as needed.

DomainKeys are easily identified with the sender in the Y! Mail Beta. We're still hoping this will continue to grow in acceptance beyond the proponent ESPs to the point where you can be sure of emails that say they are from your bank are really from who they say they are.

There is more functionality expected. Sub-folders, PhotoMail, drag-n-drop attachments are just some. Only time will tell since the Y! Mail Beta team isn't even talking about what they have rolled out, let alone what may tip their hand to the competition about future features.

There's no software to install. Launching Y! Mail Beta in your browser will cause the most recent version on your assigned mail server to load to your computer for that session. Your address book, oops sorry, your "Contacts" get preloaded in background ready to assist automatically address your emails as you start typing names.

I've used this on a 1.3GHz WinXP PC with 750MB of RAM and have found its performance a little better than tolerable. I wouldn't want to use it with less RAM on a slower processor. On a 2GHz WinXP PC with 750MB of RAM there are only a few delays in the process of loading and navigating around the Yahoo! Mail Beta. It performs admirably in both Firefox and IE6. Although a little tweaking is needed, it also runs in IE7 (beta) but not without some quirky behavior. It is officially said to support

• IE 5.5 and higher (for Windows)
• Firefox 1.0
• Mozilla Suite 1.7
• Netscape 7.2

The Y! Mail Beta was designed for a 1024x768 resolution monitor setting. So if you’re running at 800x600 or (gasp!) 640x480 your layout may seem a little cramped.

From the screencaps I've seen, we can expect this dynamic page environment in the new Yahoo! Photos which is soon to be released to a closed beta group. I'm hoping it will spread to Yahoo! Calendar and Notepad as well to create a seamless PIM.

As you my well have already figured out, we are just seeing the beginning of some significant enhancements to the fundemental properties which are the foundation of the Yahoo! Experience!