Yahoo opens Mail services to developers

Yahoo is to open up its Mail services to third parties that want to provide compatible email applications.

The aim is to provide users with a "smarter inbox experience", according to Yahoo, and allow them to do more from their mailbox.

Mark Risher, director of product management for Yahoo Mail, explained in a blog post that developers will be provided with access to documentation and guidelines for building applications that run on the Yahoo platform.

Developers will be able to use the Yahoo Application Platform, also announced today, to build, test and submit JavaScript applications which will then be embedded inside an IFrame running in the new Yahoo Mail.

"These apps can then interact with the Mail container and do things like register a call back when a message is dragged-and-dropped onto your app, pop open a new Compose tab with app-generated content, or fetch social data from around the Yahoo network through Yahoo Query Language using the JavaScript APIs we provide," said Risher.

Yahoo added that the addition of developers to the programme would be gradual for security reasons.

The beta testing of selected applications began today with a limited group of Yahoo Mail users in the US, and the functionality will be extended to Mail users worldwide in 2009.