Yahoo! Expands Community Services With Free E-Mail

Yahoo! Mail Helps Users Stay in Touch

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Oct. 8, 1997 -- Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today launched Yahoo! Mail (mail.yahoo.com), a free, e-mail service for Internet users. Based on the popular RocketMail technology, recently rated the No. 1 free e-mail service by C|Net, Yahoo! Mail provides users with a free e-mail account accessible from any Net-connected computer, anywhere in the world. Yahoo! Mail is the latest offering in Yahoo!'s family of community services, which also includes chat, message boards, classifieds, maps, yellow pages and white pages. In a separate release today, Yahoo! announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Four11, creators of the popular RocketMail Web-based e-mail, Four11 white pages and telephony services.

"Yahoo! has established one of the Web's largest global communities by providing services to foster open communications for our users," said Jeff Mallett, senior vice president of Business Operations at Yahoo!. "Our community services have quickly become some of the leading services on the web. Integrating chat, mail, classifieds, message boards and other services throughout Yahoo!'s properties helps encourage discussions between users and allows individuals to communicate by whatever means they prefer."

With its new e-mail service, Yahoo! is poised to take advantage of the explosive growth in the e-mail market. According to figures from the Electronic Mail & Messaging Systems' (EMMS) most recent report (Aug. 11, 1997), the worldwide e-mailbox count is approaching 150 million. EMMS' findings also show that the freemail sector alone showed growth of 3.6 million mailboxes in the second quarter of this year.

Stay in Touch Wherever You Are
With Yahoo! Mail, individuals have free, convenient access to e-mail anywhere they have Net access. This makes it easy for users to stay in touch at home or while traveling for business or pleasure. Users can have one e-mail address for life, whether they move, change jobs or ISPs, graduate or travel around the world. Like Yahoo!'s other community services, Yahoo! Mail is integrated throughout the main Yahoo! site (www.yahoo.com) and other Yahoo! properties for instant communication access -- to send mail, chat with others, post a message or find someone or something needed at that moment. In addition to traditional e-mail features for sending, receiving and managing mail, Yahoo! Mail also includes the following:

• One-time Registration for All Yahoo! Personalized Services -- Individuals registering for Yahoo! Mail are automatically registered for Yahoo! Chat, Classifieds and My Yahoo!. Users already registered for one of these services can access the other services simply by typing in their log-in name and password.
• Remote Mail Account Access -- Individuals with more than one e-mail account can access them through Yahoo! Mail, using any Net-connected computer.
• Password Protection and Management -- All e-mail accounts are password protected with a user-selected email address and password. Users have the option to change their password at any time.
• 3 Megabytes of Storage Space -- Users can save up to 3 Megabytes of messages in their box. Messages stay in the system until the user deletes them. Yahoo! Mail will send warnings to users when their box starts to get full.
• Support of Rich Multimedia Features -- Yahoo! Mail is Web-based, it can support many different forms of text, audio and video media as well as send and receive HTML documents and accepts both MIME and Uuencoded documents.
• Access to Four11's Directories -- Yahoo! Mail incorporates Four11's directories, providing users with access to more than 10 million e-mail addresses and more than 100 million phone numbers.
• Address Book Feature -- Users can create address books for easy access to their most frequently used names, addresses and numbers. The address book includes nicknames and group aliases as well.
• Online Help Desk -- Yahoo! Mail users have access to an award-winning online help desk (Four11 was voted the best online help of any freemail service by C/Net).

Advertising Opportunities
Yahoo! Mail offers advertisers a unique forum to reach consumers. The new service launches with charter sponsor WebGenesis, creators of The Globe, the premier Web community with more than 600,000 members.

About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) is a global Internet media company that offers a network of branded Web programming that serves millions of users daily. As the first online navigational guide to the Web, www.yahoo.com is the single largest guide in terms of traffic, advertising, household and business user reach, and is one of the most recognized brands associated with the Internet. Yahoo! Inc. provides targeted Internet resources and communications services for a broad range of audiences, based on demographic, key-subject and geographic interests. Yahoo! is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif.

# # #

Press Contacts:
Blaise Simpson NRG PR 415-827-7065 blaise@nrgpr.com	Diane Hunt Yahoo! Inc. 408-731-3441 diane@yahoo-inc.com

Back to top