Yahoo mail supports Facebook chat

In the face of formidable foes, Yahoo mail beta's reinvention continues. Facebook chat support is now supported within Yahoo mail beta users' inbox, trying to add more social networking capabilities to Yahoo mail. The ability to chat with your Facebook friends is the latest in a series of features recently added to Yahoo mail to keep it abreast with competing email services like Google's Gmail and Microsoft's Hotmail.

Almost a year ago, Yahoo started allowing the ability to update a user's Facebook status through the Yahoo mail inbox. But the Facebook chat support takes that experience one step further for Yahoo mail users.

In a blog post, a Yahoo mail product manager explained how Facebook chat will work. Yahoo mail users should look for Facebook Friends below Online Contacts, on the left column of the inbox. Clicking on the thunderbolt next to Facebook Friends will ask you to authenticate your user account over Facebook Connect -- if you haven't already.

Once that's done, your online Facebook friends will appear among your Yahoo contacts and you can chat with them through your Yahoo mail inbox.

Yahoo mail was revamped recently and was under development for a while codenamed as Yahoo Mail Minty.

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