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Yahoo Mail is now available in Hindi

Yahoo has released a Hindi version of its email service and it plans to launch the service in other Indian languages, too, in the near future

Yahoo has extended the localisation approach to its e-mail service in India. It released a Hindi version of Yahoo Mail and is working towards launching the service in other Indian languages as well. Earlier in 2007, Yahoo launched its portal in seven Indian languages (Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi and Gujarati).

“The Hindi version of Yahoo Mail will be launched in a phased manner and it will be available to all users in the next two-three weeks. Initially, only the classic version of Yahoo Mail will be offered in Hindi as it is the more popular version; later on, it will be extended to new Yahoo Mail,” says IM Swaminathan, director, communication and community products, Yahoo! India.

Yahoo Mail is now available in Hindi
Yahoo members will be able to access most e-mail features using the Hindi service –news feeds, icons, send and write mails. However, to send mail in Hindi, the user will need a Hindi keyboard or the support of a Windows language program to input Hindi characters. The Windows language program allows a user to input Hindi characters from a standard keyboard.

Swaminathan points out, “The Hindi version of Yahoo Mail is focused more on Hindi users who uses Hindi keyboards rather than on bilingual users, but Yahoo can provide the transliteration tool in the future.”

Yahoo believes that its localisation approach will help it get more users on board and this will attract advertisers as well. Right now, Yahoo Mail (Hindi) is displaying a few Yahoo ads in Hindi. Yahoo is planning to rope in advertisers in the future. Along with the Hindi version of Yahoo mail, ninth version of Yahoo! Messenger is also released, which is available in Hindi too.

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