The calendar is coming in the next few weeks and will feature improved navigation capability. Here’s what Yahoo has promised users with its release:

*Cleaner design with easy discovery and navigation
*Much faster interface
*New toolbar buttons to navigate between day, week, and month views
*Improved month view with full event titles and all the day events
*All the themes that you use with the latest version of Yahoo! Mail
*Holiday calendars from 15 new countries
*And a lot more…

Exciting news! A new calendar on the horizon….I can’t wait!

An apparently official statement from Yahoo on the matter is making the rounds on Twitter as well. It says, “”Some Yahooservices are currently inaccessible..We are working to correct the issue.”

Mashable obtained another, slightly longer statement saying, “Some Yahoo services are currently inaccessible to some users in certain locations. We are working to correct the issue and restore all functionality immediately. We know that this may have caused some inconvenience and we apologize to our users who might be affected.”

Yahoo Mail users that haven’t been able to access the site, have been getting a message telling them that the webpage isn’t available.

People seem to be searching Google, hoping to find the site when Yahoo can’t (I’m guessing unsuccessfully). Top Google Trends at the moment include: “yahoo.com sign in,” “yahoo.com mail,” and “www.yahoo.com mail.”

I have to assume Google is getting a kick out of this, considering its recent Gmail push (which is probably more a Google+ push in reality). Although, it’s not as if Gmail has been completely immune from outages itself.

Google’s Gmail traffic is only exceeded by traffic to Google.com itself.

“The actual percentages aren’t really all that important here. What’s important to note is that the subdomains used for webmail have a ranking near or at the top for all three companies,” Pingdom says on its blog. “Imagine the hit to their web presence if they didn’t have these webmail services.”

“Email has been declared dead several times over the past few years. The truth, however, is that we still depend on it more than most people realize, and there is no replacement in sight,” Pingdom says. “Google knows this. Microsoft knows this. Yahoo knows this. They know that their email services are still extremely important.”

They also make a good point in that the email services of these companies provide ways they can get other offerings i front of customers. Pingdom uses Google Buzz as an example, which was launched within Gmail. While Buzz may not be the most successful product of all time, it certainly put the service right in front of users.

In fact, Google has added a lot of things to Gmail over the years, such as GTalk, video chat, and of course ads, which are based on words that appear in conversations you have in your email.

This week, Yahoo began rolling out its all new feature-rich version of Yahoo Mail. Email would appear to be more critical to Yahoo’s strategy than even Google or Microsoft’s, as Yahoo Mail makes up the majority of traffic to Yahoo.com.

Email isn’t just important to these three major web entities either. Even the newer-genartion social media compnaies recognize the signifiance of email. Facebook has gone so far as to launch its own email addresses, and Twitter just started rolling out email notifications for more of its features, in an effort to drive further engagement with the service.

Earlier this month, MarketTools released a study commissioned by Microsoft, indicating that 45% say their use of email at work will most likely increase in the next year. 51% said it would likely stay the same, and only 4% thought it would decrease. At home, 36% said it will increase, 55% said it will stay the same, and only 6% said it will decrease.

“Yahoo!’s vision for online communications brings together all the tools that people use to connect — email, chat, SMS, and social updates — and makes it easier for them to share content and engage in conversations with the people that matter most to them,” said Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving. “We’re delivering on this strategy with the latest version of Yahoo! Mail, providing our hundreds of millions of users worldwide with a fun, engaging and  constantly connected experience across desktop, mobile and tablet devices that keeps the conversation going – anytime, anywhere.”

The new Yahoo Mail will let users respond to messages from Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Mail and other webmail providers from one reply bar. Users can view photo slideshows and inline videos in the inbox, and can view and share notifications and updates from Twitter, Facebook, and Zynga from a new “Updates” tab.

Yahoo will surface your most frequent contacts and lists first, when you go to compose an IM, SMS or email. Users can chat with Facebook Friends along with Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger contacts, and view all past IM and text conversations from within Yahoo Mail.

There are 50 different themes and stationery options and new apps for productivity and organization that can be used in the inbox. “Now you can track your online orders with the All My Purchases app, stop receiving unwanted newsletters using the Unsubsriber app, and send mega files using Attach Large Files by YouSendIt,” says Yahoo Mail Sr. Director of Product Management David McDowell.

“Our mail search experience leverages Yahoo!’s wealth of search science and technology to help you quickly find the emails you are looking for,” he adds. “Easily sort and narrow search results by sender, attachment file, date, or folder location using the refinement column tools on the left-hand side.”

The new Yahoo Mail also utilize’s Yahoo’s cloud to provide faster performance. Yahoo says it’s two times faster than previous incarnations of Yahoo Mail (even in regions where only basic Internet speeds are offered).

It also uses an “advanced SpamGuard” technology and anti-phishing platform, which the company says reduces spam reports by 60%. Yahoo says it blocks over 550 billion spam messages per month.

Yahoo is celebrating the release by giving away a year of free coffee, “because coffee and Yahoo Mail go together so well every morning.” Good timing on that, as coffee prices are rising.

Yahoo! MailBecause coffee and Yahoo! Mail go together so well every morning, we have a great new program to share. Just sign into Yahoo! Mail for seven consecutive days and you could win a year of free coffee! Click here to sign up. http://share.yhoo.it/wtt 18 hours ago · 25 likes · 4 comments

Yahoo Mail users can go to overview.mail.yahoo.com to upgrade to the new version.

Original Article: Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving  is currently giving a talk about Yahoo’s product strategy moving forward. He is talking about the company’s plans for the fall. 

According to Irving, Yahoo has 600 million users worldwide, across its entire brand. That really puts Facebook’s over 500 million into perspective, considering how much younger that company is. 

So what’s on the way from Yahoo? A new Mail experience more focused on performance and speed, for starters. Over the next few weeks, users will have access to the new beta. Yahoo promises a "cleaner, sleeker" interface, a faster experience, better anti–spam features, the ability to view and update Facebook and Twitter pages from the inbox, and enhancements to features like video, photo sharing tools, and a new version of Yahoo Messenger. 

Irving says the Mail experience has been changed "from the ground up."

Then there’s search. Yahoo is launching new rich search results for entertainment and news. For movies, music artists, or celebrities, results will combine  images, news articles, videos, tweets, events, and ratings. For news, they’ll include videos, images, articles, and tweets on a single page. 

Additionally, the Trending Now lists will be accompanied by slideshows. 

A few other things Yahoo says to expect this fall include:

- Twitter integration on Yahoo that lets you link your accounts to update across both networks

-  A new Yahoo app for the iPad and other tablets with personalized news, info, and other updates

- Customized Content ads

- New Connected TV partnerships (they announced one with Toshiba yesterday)

Irving says, "While you can’t always see ‘under the hood’ as a consumer, you should know that we’re delivering a number of planet-scale technology components to make it all possible. For example, we have built our products on global platforms and one of the world’s largest cloud computing infrastructures. What this means for you is more features and enhancements for the products you love — sooner and more often."

Which new Yahoo offerings are you looking forward to?

"On the heels of our recently launched HTML5 mobile web mail for iPhone you’ll feel right at home with this experience," says Yahoo Mail Product Manager Lee Parry. "We’re keeping all the things users love about our new mobile Web mail, while optimizing it for the gorgeous large screen of the iPad."

Yahoo lists the following features of the iPad version:

• Faster and more reliable: If you’re offline, Yahoo! Mail uses local caching capabilities to help you access and search your messages even without an internet connection.
• Smart: You can find and organize your messages using Full Search, personal folders and Smart Folders with messages from your most important contacts and optimized views for photos and file attachments.
• Feature Rich: View rich photo attachments in their full form, or as previews directly in the inbox view. Also includes a dual-pane view to make reading and organizing a breeze.

The iPad version of Yahoo Mail is available globally (even if iPads aren’t). To access, you only need to go to mail.yahoo.com from your iPad. Yahoo says to expect more improvements and features for this version.

Yahoo lists these properties of the offering:

• Faster and more reliable: If you’re offline, Yahoo! Mail uses local caching capabilities to help you access and search your messages even without an internet connection.
• Smart: You can find and organize your messages using Full Search, personal folders and Smart Folders with messages from your most important contacts and optimized views for photos and file attachments.
• Rich: View rich photo and video attachments in their full form, or as previews directly in the inbox view.
• Seamless & unified experience: Going forward, you’ll see a consistent look and feel, whether you’re on a smartphone or a PC.

The product is available in 28 languages and 200 countries. While it’s available as an opt-in beta right now, Yahoo says it hopes to upgrade all users shortly.

Yahoo has also released its first-ever Android apps – Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail.

"Yahoo! Mail and Messenger are available as separate streamlined apps, however they offer common features that will give you a better mobile communications experience that’s easy to use and immediately familiar," says Yahoo Mail Product Manager Lee Parry. "Both apps let you compose messages with rich text, express yourself through our many Yahoo! emoticons, access Yahoo! Address Book and phone contacts, as well as share photos that you’ve taken on your phone."

"The Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger Android apps offer many of the core features that you find in their PC counterparts," adds Perry. "In the Yahoo! Mail Android app, you can search for important messages with our Full Search and Smart Folders features and organize messages into the same personal folders you use on the PC. In Messenger you can set your Yahoo! Messenger status message, view the status messages of your buddy list contacts and chat with your MSN/Windows Live Messenger friends."

The apps can be downloaded from the Android Market on devices that support Android 2.0 and higher.

"Say a company builds a tool that sends users a text message alert whenever their boss e-mails them," says Risher. "With the new tools we’re announcing, Yahoo! Mail users who are interested in this service can securely grant access to that company without sharing their password (which would be a definite no-no); because they don’t have to share their password, they can also easily revoke access if they change their mind. We’ve even added the ability to limit whether the company can view whole messages or just selected bits like the Subject line."

"With these enhancements, it’s easier than ever for companies to build new features, and we’re all excited to see what new inventions they’ll build with this service," he says.

Last month at SXSW, we spoke with Risher about some innovations going on at Yahoo Mail, one of the most widely used email services to this day (the video was done live – the actual interview starts a couple minutes in):

Risher said Yahoo mail has about 350 million users. We don’t know what all companies will come up with, based on Yahoo’s new full API access, but with that kind of usage, there is plenty of reason for them to innnovate in this area.

"These features come on the heels of other recent Yahoo! social updates, including the Yahoo! Contacts – Facebook friends import feature that launched in early March and Yahoo!’s recent support of @anywhere, and there will be more to come in the weeks and months ahead," a representative for Yahoo tells WebProNews.

"Now, whether you want to send an email, SMS, IM, or update your Yahoo! or Facebook status, you can do it all from your Yahoo! Mail inbox," the rep says.

To activate the new features, users can simply link their Yahoo and Facebook accounts by clicking on the "add to Facebook" link in the status section of the What’s New page in Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo says the Facebook integration is "just the start" of how the company plans to make it easier to do more from within Yahoo mail.