Blane
1
Internet portal Yahoo Inc. on Thursday unveiled an e-mail service that offers users expanded storage and new account management features, its latest move to expand its subscription revenue and lessen its reliance on Web advertising.
Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said Yahoo Mail Plus will cost anywhere from $29.99 to $59.99 per year, depending on how much storage the user wants. The packages range from 25 megabytes to 100 megabytes of storage space.
Mail Plus will allow users to attach more and larger files to their messages, block more addresses to prevent junk or "spam" messages and set up more filters to direct specific messages to specific folders.
The new service will also allow access to Yahoo mail accounts through traditional desktop e-mail programs like Outlook or Eudora, allow messages to be sent from different e-mail accounts through Yahoo, and remove the company's promotional taglines from messages.
Yahoo has cited paid services like extra e-mail storage as a key growth area. Such services, which the company has been adding to offset a prolonged slump in advertising, accounted for 41 percent of Yahoo's revenue in the most-recent quarter.
Lisa Pollock, director of messaging products for Yahoo, told Reuters the new, bundled service offered a 33 percent discount over existing separate offerings from Yahoo.
"What we're doing with this package is targeting e-mail users, and not just Yahoo Mail users, who use their e-mail frequently," she said. "It expands our ability to consolidate a number of different accounts through Yahoo Mail."
Besides the ability to check messages from different accounts, Mail Plus will also allow people to send their messages from different addresses, so an e-mail sent from Yahoo could look as those it was sent from someone's workplace, with replies directed to that address.
Pollock said Yahoo has seen "substantial growth" over the last three years in the percentage of mail users who pay for additional premium services, although the company does not disclose the actual figures.
Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said Yahoo Mail Plus will cost anywhere from $29.99 to $59.99 per year, depending on how much storage the user wants. The packages range from 25 megabytes to 100 megabytes of storage space.
Mail Plus will allow users to attach more and larger files to their messages, block more addresses to prevent junk or "spam" messages and set up more filters to direct specific messages to specific folders.
The new service will also allow access to Yahoo mail accounts through traditional desktop e-mail programs like Outlook or Eudora, allow messages to be sent from different e-mail accounts through Yahoo, and remove the company's promotional taglines from messages.
Yahoo has cited paid services like extra e-mail storage as a key growth area. Such services, which the company has been adding to offset a prolonged slump in advertising, accounted for 41 percent of Yahoo's revenue in the most-recent quarter.
Lisa Pollock, director of messaging products for Yahoo, told Reuters the new, bundled service offered a 33 percent discount over existing separate offerings from Yahoo.
"What we're doing with this package is targeting e-mail users, and not just Yahoo Mail users, who use their e-mail frequently," she said. "It expands our ability to consolidate a number of different accounts through Yahoo Mail."
Besides the ability to check messages from different accounts, Mail Plus will also allow people to send their messages from different addresses, so an e-mail sent from Yahoo could look as those it was sent from someone's workplace, with replies directed to that address.
Pollock said Yahoo has seen "substantial growth" over the last three years in the percentage of mail users who pay for additional premium services, although the company does not disclose the actual figures.