(31 October 2007 4:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Internet giant Yahoo!'s free email services are now available not just in English, but in Hindi language as well. The move is part of Yahoo!'s strategy to localize and cater to country specific needs.

With this, users of Yahoo! Mail will now have the option to write and read e-mail in Hindi. The new Hindi interface will include all information similar to the English version.

Yahoo! Inc's Yahoo! Mail VP John Kremer said, "We have always been focused on making it easy for people to connect to those who matter most to them. Now, with Yahoo! Mail Classic, we’re creating a more local e-mail experience. In addition, we wanted to make sure that people have the best possible Web mail experience regardless of their geographic location, preferences or system. Our product and engineering teams in India have played a crucial role in this localization."

"At Yahoo!, innovation is a key driver for our product development. Yahoo! Mail in Hindi is relevant to the 200 million Indians who are expected to come online in the next few years. This will also be an attractive product for a large section of our advertisers, who want to reach out to the non - English speaking Indian population," added Yahoo! India chief administrative officer Pranesh Anthapur.

Also, Yahoo! Messenger service has been launched in a new web-based version. With no downloads required, Yahoo! Messenger for the web ((http://in.webmessenger.yahoo.com) allows users to instant message (IM) from anywhere - offices, internet cafes, schools, airports - from any internet enabled computer.

It features factual entertainment on real estate and home design, sports and leisure, hotels and gastronomy, beauty and fashion, cars and yachting, jewellery and watches, topics that are of enormous interest to the growing economies in Asia.

Yahoo! says the service is ideal for travellers on the move and office workers with firewall constraints. Even this service is heavily localised since users will be able to chat in nine Indian languages including Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, and Gujarati. Users can switch between these languages seamlessly along with English.

The company hopes the extensive localisation of the Yahoo! India portal will revolutionize user experience and invite more users to access information on a daily basis for news, reviews, events happening around them.