San Francisco — For the first time, as the pioneering Internet firm strives to reclaim its faded glory and eroded revenues, Yahoo Inc., the Sunnyvale-based top provider of Web-based e-mail, with more than 260 million subscribers worldwide, is offering free e-mail accounts under two new domains of “ymail” and “rocketmail” in an attempt to attract new users and keep existing ones loyal, Thursday at http://mail.yahoo.com.
Yahoo has been enormously credited by analysts with running the most popular Web-based e-mail service in the world.
The addition of new domains is aimed at letting users who have outgrown or never really liked their yahoo.com email addresses to have chances at better choices. The “ymail.com” and “rocketmail.com” will add millions of new addresses to Yahoo Mail, and allow subscribers to evade the use of such elaborate addresses as “CutiePie4Ever80 or mattclark1977,” the portal said.
“We know that people want an e-mail address that reflects who they are, whether they are signing up for an e-mail address for the first time, or simply updating their e-mail pseudonym to reflect the stage they are at in life,” John Kremer, VP of Yahoo Mail, said in a statement.
“We have a lot of user IDs out there and it is pretty crowded. We want to remedy that and make sure users get the ID they want,” Kremer said.
The new domains will provide many more choices for subscribers in the United States, as well as for localized versions of the namespace in other countries, Yahoo said. People who sign up under the new domains will reportedly get the same Yahoo Mail features as addresses at yahoo.com, including unlimited e-mail storage, anti-spam and anti-virus e-mail protection; integrated instant messaging and text messaging through Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, and options for country-specific e-mail accounts.
“In many instances, Yahoo will assist users relocate their e-mail and contacts to new address and notify friends of the change.”
Free email addresses are usually allotted on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning newcomers choosing yahoo.com IDs are unlikely to get their names or other prime choices when signing up.
Sign-ups for the new e-mail addresses will most likely begin later today, according to reports in BetaNews.
“The new domains, ymail.com and rocketmail.com, should be available at
mid-day today (Thursday) — near 12 pm PT (Pacific Time) / 3pm ET (Eastern Time),” a Yahoo spokesperson said, in an e-mail to BetaNews. The land rush for staking out new user names will take place at http://mail.yahoo.com.
The move is aimed at helping people find a better e-mail address, said Kremer. “A cheerful user is one that stays around and is a Yahoo user for life,” said Kremer. “We want users to get the exact e-mail account they want so they stay with us for life,” he added.
With 266 million users recorded globally in April, Yahoo is the e-mail market leader, according to the latest statistics from research firm comScore Inc. Microsoft Corp., which unsuccessfully tried to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion, is a close second at 264 million users.
But e-mail accounts at both Yahoo and Microsoft have been moving upward at a slower pace than Google Inc.’s Gmail, which has added more than 30 million users in the past year. About 101 million people used the Internet search leader’s Gmail in April, comScore said.
Yahoo hopes that the additional options created with the new domains will help boost its e-mail growth. Besides, Yahoo also expects users to quickly recognize “ymail” because it is also in use for a version of the email “customized for mobile devices,” as well.
However, if there is a “sudden surge” that results in the new domains being stripped of ID choices, Yahoo may establish new domains based on the names of some of its other online properties, according to Kremer.
Yahoo, in the past few months relentlessly began rolling out alliances, innovations and improved Internet services after Microsoft went public with a takeover bid in February.
The rapidity of announcements remains intense as Yahoo faces a possible rebellion by stockholders upset that it failed to close a deal with Microsoft, which raised its bid to nearly 50 billion dollars before walking away.
Yahoo further plans to “roll out thunder of announcements” around Yahoo Mail in the next six to eight months, he added. Some significant alterations will include as a “smarter inbox,” work to make Yahoo Mail fit better in today’s world of social networking, and the opening of the mail platform, he added.
It is an excellent item, because there are plenty of competitors–not just traditional Web mail outfits such as Microsoft Hotmail, AOL, and up-and-coming Google Gmail, but also social sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Yahoo considers the full spectrum of competition, though.
“What we believe here at Yahoo is all communication is eventually coming together,” Kremer said. “You do not need to bounce out to a separate social communications site or a different social event site when most of those tools are really just communications. If it is built on the same address book and calendar information, you can see them coming together in a single, more productive, smarter inbox.”
Rocketmail has a “hip retro feel” because it is a resurrected email address that belonged to a company Yahoo bought in 1997, according to Kremer.
“It is a great brand,” Kremer said. “Those who have no memory of our service in the late 1990s indicated they like it, and those who indicated they want to be retro like it for the fact that it is associated with Yahoo.com since the beginning.”