Oh no! Not another learning experience!
| Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 | --Sean |
Are you using the Yahoo! Mail Beta yet? If not, head to Yahoo! Mail's What's New page and get onto the waiting list ASAP, because you're missing out on an absolutely killer feature.
The Subject-O-Matique!
Never again flail about for an appropriate email subject; the Subject-O-Matique's advanced Completely Random Selection™ algorithm will determine the best possible (ie, random) title, based on absolutely no criteria, and insert it into your email's subject field for you. Simply click on the "Subject:" button and let the Subject-O-Matique astound you with such meticulously constructed turns of phrase as:
- ILOVEYOU
- ASAP's Fables
- Nutrageous!
- The puppet show has been cancelled. Ciao.
- open air hubbub or underwater sub snub?
- Allow myself to introduce...myself
The versatile Subject-O-Matique can even be used to label blog posts, as demonstrated above. It is, indeed, a marvel of technology.
Internet high-five to whichever Yahoo! came up with this hilariously fun idea. :)
July 18th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
It’s a carry over from Oddpost, so technically the idea wasn’t born at Yahoo! But like many other things, we did acquire it. ;)
July 18th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Ah, we’re lucky to have acquired such a cool company, then. :)
July 19th, 2006 at 7:03 am
[...] Via YCoolthing [...]
July 19th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
I’m not seeing this. My -subject- button isn’t clickable. I tried Firefox and IE.
July 19th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
@chrisf:
Are you in the Yahoo! Mail Beta, and are you composing a mesage (I should have specified that)? Everything should look pretty much like the image in the post if so. Not sure I can help at all beyond that; maybe you should click harder? :D
July 19th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Yep, I’m in the Beta and yep I’m trying to compose a message. The To, CC and BCC are all clickable, but not the Subject button. Oh well, guess I’ll have to continue writing my own subject lines like a sucker.
July 21st, 2006 at 12:29 am
chrisf, what country version are you using? What does the logo in the top left say?
July 22nd, 2006 at 5:44 pm
US version.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
I do see that but I’m questionning its real purpose….are you guys gonna make this editable , like predetermined subjects writte, by the user?
July 25th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
I believe the main purpose was amusement. :P I’m having trouble coming up with a personalized set of subjects that would actually make more sense than the subject list we’re using when randomly applied to arbitrary emails.
April 14th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
How can I turn this “feature” off? I don’t like it all that much.
April 15th, 2007 at 5:12 am
Er…by not clicking on the subject, maybe?
Technically also by signing up for one of our partner telecom deals (where I think they disable it) or by living outside of the US.
August 7th, 2007 at 10:56 am
I live in the U.K. and for some reason am unable occasionally to type in the subject line and am plagued by the random titles which appear if I click on the subject button. How can I disable this feature ? No offence to any of you who just love it But some of my friends will just junk stuff which has suspect titles.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I live in Canada. I must click on the subject line if I want to put a subject line in. Suddenly I get a subject line which is ridiculous. This is “cutsie” but is there any way I can disable this feature? It just showed up tonight. The only change I did was a microsoft update.
Thanks, from the Grumpy old Man LOL
January 25th, 2008 at 12:15 am
I don’t believe that there’s any way to disable the feature, but it should only be that clicking on the Subject label next to the actual text box that’ll trigger the Subject-O-Matique. Just clicking on the empty text box itself should orient your cursor there and let you start typing a subject. Are you getting the behavior where clicking on the typable area is populating one of these random subjects?
March 5th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I am only able to enter my own subject into the Subject box by pasting it in. This Subject-O-Matique appears to be blocking me from typing in the Subject box. Features that are not properly implemented are NOT cool features. Grrr..
July 14th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Fantastic! Chai tea or Tai Chi!!!!!!!!
November 1st, 2008 at 5:57 am
This is proof evident that what the lowing MASS wants, the rest of of us gets. Apparently it is a market law. I don´t care who I offend, this is an infringement of the rights of us “XXX”, or whatever adjective you want to use to label us with. We are not just another lemming jumping off a cliff behind the rest of the other dolts.
This Subject-O-matique feature is just the kind of idiotic thing made for those who want Sarah Palin in the Oval Office.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Really? I mean, really? :)
I wonder if Google gets this sort of thing when they put cute features into their products. :)
(bravo for being topical with the Sarah Palin reference, by the way! Hooray voting!)
January 26th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
[...] to the Yahoo! Cool thing of the Day blog archive, the feature is a holdover from OddPost (Yahoo! acquired Oddpost in 2004) : The [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Get rid of this “subject-O-matique!! I’m fed up to the eyeballs with it. Its a PAIN. We dont ALL Email for fun, some of us actually HAVE to do serious stuff…For goodness sake, leave it in the nursery and Grow up !!!
We werent asked…werent consulted….and werent warned…i should imagine that older users are frightened and scared by this suddenly popping-up…NOT GOOD YAHOO and NOT appreciated.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
agree with yap yap – this is the most absurd feature I’ve ever seen – get rid of it ASAP…is there a way to turn it off! Yikes what a disaster if you have to send a mail with a legit subject