Yahoo officials said that due to the growing number of users, creating a name for an e-mail account on Yahoo Mail has become quite a complicated task.

Instead of simple e-mail addresses like myname@yahoo.com , the users should use various combinations. In order to ease the life of its customers, Yahoo has decided to expand the domain names of its free webmail.

The name Rocketmail was acquired by Yahoo in 1997 when the company bought Four11, which was Hotmail’s main competitor. Unveiled later that year, Yahoo Mail was based on Rocketmail engine.  

The users of Rocketmail have kept their e-mail accounts after the acquisition, but Yahoo has blocked the new sign-ups. Ymail is a domain that is already well-known for the users of Yahoo Mobile services.

The company said that the new e-mail accounts will offer the same interface and facilities as the ones from Yahoo.com. Also, Rocketmail and Ymail will offer localization options and unlimited storage.

However, Yahoo’s effort to increase its e-mail accounts is somehow questionable because several studies conducted in the past few years revealed that the e-mail use is on decline, its place being taken by the instant messaging.  Based on the registered number of users and the active accounts, Yahoo Mail is already the largest free e-mail provider in the United States.

Yahoo Mail unveiled a new interface that mimic the one of an e-mail client in August last year and it included several features such as Yahoo Calendar, SMS or the ability to send instant messages.

However, it faces a strong competition from Windows Live Mail, the service created by Microsoft as part of its Live brand.

Yahoo explained that those who wish to change their existing e-mail address from name @yahoo.com to name@ymail.com will have this option.

The ID’s created on Rocketmail and Ymail domains can be used also on other services such as Yahoo Messenger.

Last year, Yahoo acquired Zimbra, a company that provides NEXT generation e-mail services and collaboration software. Zimbra’s offer included an AJAX-based e-mail, which integrates calendar and contact management features.

According to Chang Yahoo intends to use Zimbra platform in order to strengthen and extend its position in e-mail services market.   Zimbra is offering also to its user the possibility to create mash-ups called Zimlets that tie in valuable Web services to e-mail. Yahoo paid for Zimbra $350 million.