Yahoo Mail just got a little smarter this week, with the introduction of new elements as part of Yahoo’s efforts to create the next generation mail service. The “smarter inbox” feature will be progressively introduced to users over the coming months, the company said in the official announcement made on Monday.

The change is meant to reflect Yahoo’s Open Strategy initiative, and is especially important since it addresses millions of Yahoo Mail users around the world.

The world as we see it today is more social and more connected than ever, and as Yahoo said, the next generation of Yahoo Mail will reflect the needs of consumers, by giving them access to the information that is relevant and useful to them, all from their inbox.

Yahoo Mail’s newest addition, the smart inbox, comes with a new Yahoo Mail Welcome Page which provides access to third-party applications that can use the email content, calendar and contacts, with the user’s permission.

Furthermore, the Welcome Page will also offer users a preview of messages from their connections, but also updates from connections and their activity across Yahoo for now, and the Web later on, the company explained.

John Kremer, vice president o Yahoo Mail, said the changes reflect the demands of Yahoo users, who want to be more productive when they use their inbox. Furthermore, they wanted to get rid of the inbox overload problem, but also stay connected and communicate, and embed useful applications directly into the inbox.

Yahoo Mail’s makeover acknowledges the importance of online social experiences in users’ lives, and attempts to combine all the activities, interests, and social experiences, in one common place: the inbox.

The email service will provide updates to anything from Yahoo profile, to Yahoo Buzz, or Yahoo properties such as TV, music and travel. The company also announced the limited availability of a beta test for integrating third-party applications into Yahoo Mail.

The applications include Family journal, which allows users to build a family tree inside Yahoo Mail; Flickr for sharing photos; Flixster, for sharing movies, trailers; WordPress, for posting photos, links and more from the inbox directly to the WordPress blog; Xoopit, for seeing and sharing photos and attachments stored in the inbox; and Yahoo Greetings with American Greetings, which allows users to seamlessly send e-cards from Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo also highlighted the importance of Yahoo Open Strategy for third party publishers, developers, and advertisers. The smarter inbox adds to the transformation of the Yahoo Network and services as an unprecedented distribution opportunity for developers to share their ideas with Yahoo users worldwide, the company said.

Users in the United States will be the first to experience the smarter inbox experience, starting immediately, but the wide availability is expected sometime in mid-2009.