Yahoo’s new feature announcement of allowing users to send free sms from eMail looks like a plain marketing gimmick rather than an actual innovation. Yahoo has termed it as an enhanced social email experience. But let’s take a deeper look and understand this in detail.

The integration eMail and messenger makes sense as it allows users to keep in touch without having to bother about loading an additional application and chat within the same window, but extending it to mobile for sms is fundamentally flawed. If you analyze the usage experience of heavy internet users, the applications used for communication amongst the peer group or the social group is actually moved from eMail to scraps and IM. Heavy users primarily use email for sending attachments and not for short messages.

Now short messages or sms which are meant for mobile phones are more suited to be integrated with Instant messenger or scraps which allow you to have two way communications and are meant for sharing short messages which rank the highest in usage amongst heavy users. But using eMail to send SMS which is only one way is not a very convenient way to communicate.

Yahoo may find very few people who will actually buy this new feature as innovation for the reasons stated above. This looks more like a desperate move from yahoo rather than innovaton. Besides this Rediff has been offering free sms through its messenger for a long time now and this facility is also available through eMail but its charged. Obviously Rediff guys have their fundamentals right because any users who wants to use free sms will use IM as the task is more suited for the application, rather than eMail unless there is a specific need for which Rediff is charging.

Additionally Rediff was also the first player to announce unlimited storage on eMail and Yahoo followed them. I think Yahoo can learn a lot of lessons from Indian companies who are giving them a tough fight and should quickly get their act together and end playing the marketing gimmicks.

Anshul......looks like u work for rediff...or what ever it is......or may be ur GF does and u r just trying to impress her....

Every one would be in eager to check their scraps to Know whether he/she has scraped me. Here is an end to that!!!

Read this article in http://techdoz.blogspot.com

i thought google was the first player to announce unlimited storage…

and rediff followed suite…

google orkut scraps in mobiles sounds interesting but don’t you think its going to very very irritating when you keep getting beep messages every time there is a scrap entry in your orkut profile?
at first it would look or nice and innovative and vogue to use mobile orkut scraps but if you are working or studying and if your mobile is gonna beep every time someone using orkut from net sends you a scrap, it will be very disturbing and irritating and hinder productivity.
i wonder if Google guys have thought about this issue?

vikas
http://www.mklix.com

i dont think i like that idea too much, i am currently also pondering on the privacy issue and how that might take a turn for the worse here.

the best site for every thing ic rediffmail.

yes, pondering on the privacy issue is important.

life line yahoo!