#bookpad

Mayukh Bhaowal, Senior Product Manager

Sending, receiving and viewing attachments is one of the most important ways people use email. In early 2014, we launched a way to preview attachments right in Yahoo Mail without having to download them. We also recently announced a new way to search and easily attach recent photos and files you have received or sent - right from compose.

Previews of attachments in Yahoo Mail has been growing at a fast pace and engagement is off the charts. We love it when our users find value in our features. In the meantime, the industry around document sharing and collaboration has also been growing rapidly. In the fall of last year, we acquired Bookpad (a company working on document previewing and collaboration technology) to build some of the new technology behind Yahoo Mail attachment preview and collaboration. We think there will be a time in the near future where you’ll have all the tools you need in mail, without having to ever download an attachment.

Today, we are happy to announce the roll-out and major refresh of the document preview experience and improvements to the underlying technology - making it even faster.

New Viewing Experience

Usually when viewing attachments, you constantly have to switch back and forth between reading/composing an email and referencing the attachment. Now, with Yahoo’s new experience, when you click on an attachment, a side-by-side preview will appear so you can read your message or even reply, all while viewing your attachment. We’ve also added an expanded preview mode for those smaller screens and a presentation mode.

The design is responsive - if you reduce the size of your window, the preview will automatically turn into the expanded preview mode so that the attachment is still legible. The best part is, you can still understand the context of the message by hovering over “back to message.”

For PowerPoint, we’ve added a presentation mode so now you can open the slides full screen right within Yahoo Mail.

New Technology

Under the hood, document preview uses native HTML and CSS for better performance since it leverages built-in browser optimizations. This is a shift from SVG/HTML5, which was slower.  Previews of documents, including PDFs and Microsoft Office files, are also lightning fast because we convert the attachment to a preview version before you even click on it, saving valuable time.

For shortcut users, we’ve added the following:

Ctrl --/++ to zoom in or out within a document

Left/Right to navigate among multiple attachments

Up/Down to scroll through an attachment

Ctrl+F for expanded preview mode. Ctrl+F again to go to presentation mode. Esc to reverse the process.

The ePoise team had the pleasure of interacting with Mr. Niketh Sabbineni on hiring practices and here’s what he had to say! 

Name: Niketh Sabbineni

Company: Bookpad

Q1. Please tell us a little bit about Bookpad

Bookpad is a technology company focused on solving problems with Document Handling for our customers. We believe that as more and more Documents are being moved to the cloud, our customers would need productivity tools to access/manage their online content.

Q2  What are the key challenges in hiring the talent that you are looking for?

Hiring was always a big challenge for us. Here are some of the problems that we faced:

a. Getting the right talent : We had specific requirements, for example we wanted candidates who were strong with systems. And often it would be hard to find candidates with specific skill sets

b. Since we were a fairly young startup, funding is always a problem. Most of the candidates expected salaries way way over our budget

c. Candidates never understood the concept of equity over salary.

d. Often  most of the candidates that reached out were freshers, where as we were looking for people with some experience.

Q3. What role do you think the companies play in managing the candidate experience?

Companies play a huge role in managing candidate experience. At Bookpad and for me personally, a candidate is like a customer. You want to make sure that the interview experience right from the initial short-listing to the final offer acceptance is as smooth as possible. You want the candidate to understand the company and his job as much as possible and we try to be as transparent as we possibly can. Even if a candidate doesn't join your company, he can potentially be you best ambassador and refer other suitable candidates and that too for free!

Q4. Do you think India has a conducive atmosphere for Start-ups to thrive?

India definitely has a conducive atmosphere for Startups to thrive. The ecosystem is maturing very nicely. The 3 elements;  startups, customers and VCs are all coming together now. Startups need customers to thrive and for that they often need funding and more funding means more customers. This cycle is now also being fueled by the Indian Government, bodies like Nasscom, a host of accelerator programs etc. Also since the awareness is so high, there a lot of people who are willing to trade their job at MNCs and come work for a startup.

Q5. What role do you think technology has to play in the process of recruiting? Do you think it could simplify the process?

Everyday there are new startups coming up and older ones are shutting down. So in such uncertain circumstances, it is hard for startups to invest in a dedicated HR team or even invest in building infrastructure for interviewing etc. This gap can only be fulfilled by technology which allows me to quickly identify a suitable candidate, interview them in a hassle free manner and make an offer as quickly as possible.

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