Yahoo has taken the “beta” label off its new mail. Here’s an overview from the Yodel Anecdotal blog. The new Yahoo Mail, said Yahoo, offers new speed and performance enhancements as well as an expansion of the search refinement features.

Yahoo! Mail and its biggest competitors, Google Inc.’s Gmail and Microsoft Corp.’s Hotmail, are adding features to attract and keep users. Yahoo is the first of the three to offer free text messages, after adding more storage and instant messaging in February to match some features provided by its rivals.

Arguably the most interesting aspect of the new features is the inclusion of the capability of sending text messages to mobile phones from Yahoo Mail. The service is currently available to mobile phone users in the US, Canada, India and the Philippines.

The text messaging feature is integrated into the interface and works in almost exactly the same way as standard emailing, but users enter a phone number instead of an email address. Each message is limited to 150 characters.

Unlike a traditional email inbox, the system creates an instant message style interface to allow users to track the course of the conversation.

Users also have the option of connecting to their contacts via Yahoo Messenger or Windows Live Messenger through the Mail interface.

They can also convert email messages into IM chats or switch to a text message dialogue if the person they are chatting to comes online or goes mobile.

Moreover, in the U.S., the new Yahoo Mail will also gain a feature called Shortcuts that has been available in the “classic” version of the service. This feature lets the system automatically recognize things such as dates and addresses, giving people the option of adding the information to their Yahoo Calendar or Contacts list, launching Web searches and displaying a map inside the Yahoo Mail interface.

Confused about which email service to choose? Then here is a comparison between the world’s most popular free email service Gmail, MSN Hotmail (Which is now called Windows Live Hotmail), and Yahoo Mail. (more…)