The web-based email UI wars

Then Google launches Gmail, with a very Oddpostish interface, and someone at Yahoo says "Hmmm, I've seen that somewhere," calls up Ethan and Iain and their new VCs and asks "Are you for sale?" and the rest is history....is a snippet from here.

Yahoo buys Oddpost!

Natually, I go over to Oddpost to sign up and see how Gmailish its interface is, for myself. But, Lo! I don't see a "Register" link anywhere on the page.

But I found the following screen-shot of Oddpost over here.

Well, the interface doesn't look Gmailish any more than any of the other web-based email services. It looks like Outlook.

Gmail offerred a free 1 GB storage space, and a better UI than any of the other popular web-based email providers. Yahoo is offering 100 MBs of mail storage space for free. Now, that they've bought the developers of Oddpost, I'm all tuned-in to see how Yahoo's interface changes in the future!

BTW, was it mere conincidence that Yahoo announced this on a Friday, when everybody is packing up to get ready for the weekend :-)