AOL to improve Web mail service

OK, it may have taken them long enough, but at least they are finally getting around to it. AOL is going to bemaking improvements to their Web mail service. I applaud the effort, but would point out that they need to look at offering POP3 service as well.

America Online is getting ready to upgrade the interface and performance of the Web mail service for its subscribers.

The upgrade, possibly by the end of this week, will be followed in several months with the rollout of a free Web mail service for people who aren’t subscribers of AOL’s fee-based service.

AOL expects to switch over to the improved service by Friday of this week, although it could be a day or two later, said Roy Ben-Yoseph, the company’s director of e-mail products, on Tuesday.

“The major thing and the one we’re most proud of is the complete redesign of the interface,” Ben-Yoseph said.

The Web mail interface has been revamped to have the look and feel of a typical Web application, he said. Currently, AOL’s Web mail interface resembles the e-mail interface of AOL’s client application.

Another interface improvement is the display of folders in a pane next to the inbox. Currently, users have to click around a couple of times to bring up the folders, which aren’t displayed next to the inbox.

Along the way, AOL improved the Web mail service’s performance so that it loads and responds faster, Ben-Yoseph said.

Other enhancements and new features include the ability to drag and drop e-mail messages into folders. Also, all the spam-blocking and filtering capabilities of the AOL service will now be available for Web mail users, who currently only have access to a subset of those capabilities, Ben-Yoseph said.