Early next year, Yahoo will begin giving Yahoo Mail users the ability to initiate an IM conversation with the email's recepient, without either party having to download Yahoo Messenger.

With the new service, Yahoo Mail users can chat via email, as well as with Microsoft Windows Live Messenger users, CNET reports. The new feature will allow Yahoo Mail users to see whether their contacts are logged on using auto-complete. If they are, an IM session can be initiated with one click. Yahoo Mail already alerts users when their contacts are online, but IM software must be installed on both computers for an IM session to be created.

Yahoo is following rival Google's lead, which has already integrated Google Talk into its GMail email program. But with Yahoo Mail's 250 million users, Yahoo's version could gain acceptance much quicker than Google's, which is used by just 10 million users.

Reuters quotes a Yahoo spokeswoman as hinting that Yahoo is also considering how and whether to incorporate web-calling features inside the merged Yahoo email and instant messaging system.

Brad Garlinghouse, vice-president of communications, communities and front doors at Yahoo, adds that the merging of IM with email is another way to improve the user experience. "The Web 2.0 experience is how to make things social, a people-centric experience," he said. "Technical specifications have never been less important to the success of a product."