"Hi, my name is Marc and I'm an e-mail addict. It's been three days since I signed up for a new free e-mail account."

The web-based e-mail game is entering a new round with the major players - Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, and AOL - all testing or delivering shiny new features and, with the exception of Gmail, significantly improved user interfaces. Gmail, the new kid on the block, relatively speaking, upset the apple cart when it was introduced both in terms of the amount of storage it provided and the way mail was organized. No folders? Tagging mail with labels? At the time, these were large leaps of faith. Google has established a very transparent, incremental method of rolling out new Gmail features. From time to time, a new red link appears at the top of the Gmail page to announce what's been added.

Having used Gmail as my primary web mail address for a long time, I've grown completely comfortable with Google's "tag it, archive it, search for it" approach to mail management. But, as I mentioned above with my tongue only slightly inserted into my cheek, I do have a lot of web mail addresses. Now that I've gained acess to the beta versions of both Windows Live Mail (the forthcoming replacement for Hotmail) and, most recently, the new version of Yahoo! Mail, I thought a quick look at each new version might be in order.

Windows Live Mail is part of the larger set of services, both rebranded and new, that Microsoft is releasing under the “Live” banner. This is the new Hotmail (code-named Big Kahuna) which has been in development for some time. Like all of the new offerings (but not Gmail), Windows Live Mail provides a desktop-like drag-and-drop interface for working with mail. Unlike all the others, this is sole way of working with messages displayed in the inbox. There are no checkboxes next to each message to select multiple messages for filing, deleting, or marking as spam. You accomplish that using either the Shift or Ctrl keys, just as you would in Outlook or Outlook Express.

In fact, Microsoft is so intent on providing a desktop-like experience that they have made the standard right-click an integral part of working with your mail, contacts, and calendar information. Other enhancements include a reading pane (which Yahoo! also offers), one click “send to spam” or “add to Contacts” in message windows, and address auto-complete as you type. The latest update, released on November 30, added resizable columns and on-the-fly spell checking. Windows Live Mail provides “at least” 2 GB or storage and does require a Microsoft Passport as will many of the Live services.

Yahoo! has been beta testing their new e-mail service for some time and I finlly received an invitation to try it out this week. Like the other new offerings, drag-and-drop is a key feature bu the old checkbox method of selecting multiple messages remains available as well. The interface is very fresh with a clean toolbar design and very fast performance. A nicely done tutorial shows off all of the new features (although you’ll probably want to mute the sound). My favorite is the way messages are displayed in tabs as you double-click to open them.

The killer feature here is the integration of all of the RSS features Yahoo! has been providing on their personalized My Yahoo! pages. Everything I’ve subscribed to is now neatly organized in a folder labeled RSS in the mail window and provides a very NewsGator-like experience. Adding a new feed, either from a provided list of popular sites, or by entering a specific site or feed URL is easily done and the widespread “Add to Yahoo!” links you find on all of Weblogs, Inc. blogs and many other blogs will automatically add a new folder to your Yahoo Mail!. One nit - I really want to see which folders have new unread items and how many.

Yahoo! Mail is integrated with the Yahoo! Toolbar as well. My Yahoo! Mail account shows 1 GB of storage available right now. I could not find any information about whether this will be the official release’s base storage or if Yahoo! will ante up to the emerging 2 GB standard. Personally, I don’t think it matters much to most people. Unless you want to use your web mail like a storgae locker or typically send lots of large attachments, even 1 GB is a lot of space.

AOL has been in the business of providing web access to subscribers’ mail for a long time and has recently begun offering free web mail accounts to anyone interested. The old AOL web mail was a pretty standard web service - nothing unusually good or bad. The new version follows in that tradition of providing the essentials but not really breaking any new ground. AOL Mail does not offer a reading pane, for example, but continues to open mail messages in a new window. But the interface is clean, the drag-and-drop is well implemented (AOL retains the checkbox next to each message as Yahoo! has done) and I think this will be a popular choice for current AOL subscribers and those who want the bells and whistles kept to a minimum.

A new enhancement that long-time AOL mail users will appreciate (at least I know I did) is the ability to combine the New Mail and Old Mail folders into a single inbox. AOL Mail logs you out after a period of inactivity (not a bad idea actually as web mail is often accessed on shared or public machines). I could not find any information about storage quotas after an admittedly quick search.

If you already have an account with one of these providers, you’ll find your e-mail experience has improved with these enhanced versions. If you’re either new to web mail, tried it in the past and felt it was too slow or cumbersome, or are like me and have an uncontrollable urge to sign up for e-mail accounts, we’re entering into a new age of usability and integration with this latest round of releases.