Yahoo! went live today with new Yahoo! Mail Web service, most notably adding free, real-time text messaging built right into the e-mail Web interface.
The feature lets Yahoo! Mail users send text messages to mobile phones directly from the Web and from within their e-mail box, effectively integrating these two vital forms of communication.
The short message service (SMS) is built on top of Yahoo!’s instant messaging product, which is integrated into the new Yahoo Mail. Yahoo Mail users can easily switch via mail, SMS and IM via pull-down menu.
Integration of Web sites and services with SMS offerings has picked up pace lately. So-called micro-blogging services, best exemplified by Twitter, are built from the ground up with mobile integration in mind.
SMS-Web integration represents a good example of how telephony applications and Web applications can complement one another and create new communications tools for end users.
Twitter lets users broadcast 140-character-maximum messages; other users subscribe to their various friends’ Twitter feeds. Twitter users can message from a Web interface, but given the ad hoc, informal nature of the service, “twittering” via text message from a mobile phone was included from the start and is in many ways responsible for the success of the service.
Google has also experimented with adding SMS “outputs” to some of its Web services, most notably with directions in Google Maps, which lets users send text directions to a phone via text message. The search giant also has a little-known Web service called Google Send to Phone, which lets visitors send short directions directly to cell phones.
In addition to the new text messaging service — the first large Web mail offering to include SMS — the new Yahoo! Mail includes an improved, more Web 2.0-based user interface.
Yahoo! had more than 83 million U.S. users in July, according to ComScore Media Metrix.