Yandex.Mail with a human face

    Email was invented more than 40 years ago, and the first social network appeared 23 years later. Before social networks there were guest books, forums and blogs, microblogging appeared after social networks: the race is crazy, the means of communication replace each other every few years.

    Oddly enough, e-mail has not become less popular over all this time, and on the contrary, mail systems continue to develop and grow their audience (we know this for sure).

    A modern person in the mail has everything that this race creates: information about registration on sites, reminders from social networks and forums, letters from banks and discount services, and, of course, letters from people - these are the letters that are most important.

    We recognize people in life by their faces, and on social networks - by photos.
    And mail services are almost the only place where there are still no photos of the people you chat with next to the name.

    The reason mail services are lagging behind is quite simple: only a few install personalized images in their mailboxes. It’s clear that even if all users of the same Mail fill out their profiles, the problem will not be solved: there are a lot of mail services in the world. We needed a different solution, and we started looking for it. The result of our work was an algorithm that allows you to identify letters from people and find images of senders and recipients for them, not only in the mail, but also in various social networks around the Internet.





    We called the new algorithm Eva. Eva is the result of the interaction of Yandex.Mail and social networks. Without their support, we would hardly have succeeded.

    Last week, thanks to Eva, some Yandex.Mail users got a new list of letters with pictures of people.

    In the near future, Eva will undergo further training, so a modern list of letters will appear among Yandex.Mail users gradually and only on the recommendation of Eva. If you want to help us and take part in the experiment, include a new list of letters in the settings by checking the "show portraits of recipients" checkbox.

    The list of letters has become more modern not only thanks to the work of "Eva": it has become simpler and easier visually. And on small screens (for example, on netbooks) the list will look the same as before, to simplify the work with mail.

    And owners of social networks and other services whose users have avatars, we invite you to join our union. Write to support@mail.yandex.ru.


    Yandex.Mail Team

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