Sunnyvale, California — Last December, Internet search pioneer Yahoo promised that it would make tighter integration with Facebook Connect across its properties worldwide, now the Sunnyvale, Calif., company continues to expand that relationship with the latest implementation enabling users to update their Facebook status from within Yahoo Mail. Yahoo began to extend the capability from Monday evening in “select markets,” it said in a blog post, though it did not specify which ones.
While these new capabilities are only being spread out to a few select markets initially, the company said it will be pushed out more broadly over the coming weeks and months. However, Facebook users will be able to sign into their accounts right from the Yahoo Mail home page and will also be able to update their Facebook status from their in-boxes and also see their friends’ Facebook profile photos in their in-boxes, according to the company.
Yahoo now lets Facebook users update their status within Yahoo Mail. (Credit: Yahoo)
This latest integration comes several weeks after Yahoo unveiled the ability to import your Facebook contacts’ email addresses through their contact importer.
To enjoy this latest feature, users must first link their Yahoo and Facebook accounts. This can be performed by clicking “Add to Facebook” in the status section of Yahoo Mail’s What’s New page and logging in with their Facebook credentials.
Nothing incredibly groundbreaking here, once the accounts get connected, users can type a message in a status box that pops-up in Yahoo Mail and select to post it on Facebook, on Yahoo or both. If they select to post it on Yahoo, the status message shows up on their contacts’ What’s New page in Yahoo Mail.
This is a simple addition — but the changes most certainly adds to a slate of “social” elements Yahoo has been introducing to Yahoo Mail since it bought social e-mail startup Xoopit in July, and they should help combat perceptions that Yahoo Mail is lagging Gmail when it comes to innovation.
The Yahoo move also reminds of an increasing overlap between social networking sites and e-mail as communications tools. No wonder MySpace has added a webmail service and Facebook is rumored to be on the verge of doing the same.
The changes are being implemented using the Facebook Connect program.