I’m not making this up — according to a variety of calendar-conscious websites, today is Yodel for Your Neighbors Day. So get out your lederhosen, head to the McMillan’s front porch, and let out your best yodelayeehoo. Unfortunately, there’s no guidance on what happens next, though I’d imagine it involves sprinting. Here’s what we belted out this week:

• Classic Mail gets chatty: If you’re a Yahoo! Mail Classic diehard but long for some of the less retro features of the new Yahoo! Mail, the product team has your compromise. They’ve just unveiled two chatty features that will be rolled out to mailboxes over the next few months. You’ll be able to send instant messages and SMS messages to your Yahoo! contacts right from the mail interface. Your contact list will highlight who’s online and who’s mobile so you can get to them faster than email (remember when we thought faxes were fast?). Read more on the Mail and Messenger blogs.
• Bye-bye Briefcase: We’ve decided to discontinue Yahoo! Briefcase, effective March 30th. When it was born nearly ten years ago, it saw great usage, but that’s been declining over the years as people turned to places like Yahoo! Mail (unlimited storage, yeah!) and Flickr, both of which make it easier to share things. We know that’s disappointing to those of you who still rely on it, but discontinuing Yahoo! Briefcase lets us focus on the products that are more broadly used. Please, please remove your files before March 30th as you won’t be able to access them thereafter — we wouldn’t want you to lose anything.
• Year of the ox: There’s nothing quite like the guilty pleasure of checking a horoscope. And this week, you need to make that a Chinese horoscope. In honor of the Lunar New Year, the team at Yahoo! Shine has pulled together this overview of what the year of the ox will bring to oxen (as well as goats, pigs, rats, monkeys, etc.). Gong hei fat choi!

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