AOL's newly formed Products and Technologies Group made its first product announcement on Thursday, an update of AOL Mail that allows users to access Gmail and Yahoo Mail accounts.
In addition to the plugins for external mail accounts, the second largest free email service has also been updated for faster performance, over 45 new customization themes, and calendar and address syncing with mobile devices including BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone.
"Web mail is an integral part of the AOL experience and at the heart of our product offerings," said Ted Cahall, president of AOL Products and Technologies. "With this new release, we can showcase the important role AOL products continue to play in the company. Enhancing products that already attract a large, engaged audience is a key goal for our organization."
The company claims that has 48 million users for all of its mail services, including installed software and Web-based. Unique visitors to the web mail services, mail.aol.com and AIM mail users saw a 27 percent increase in unique visitors. Page views were up 21 percent in 2008.
"People who are using AOL Mail represent an already-engaged audience," said Rich Landsman, senior vice president of AOL Mail. "As we continue to extend our capabilities far beyond sending and receiving mail, we are challenging ourselves and third-party developers everywhere to create new opportunities for delivering customized, relevant content using our mail platform."
The new Products and Technologies group is part of the company's move to an ad-based profit model, and includes Mail, Mapquest, AOL Search, Truveo video search, and AOL Mobile, as well as the back-end infrastructure teams. You can check out the new webmail client at mail.aol.com. (story Link)
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