In addition to the recently announced unlimited storage feature on Yahoo’s email service, the company will be releasing an API to allow third party developers to create new and innovative features for the mail service. “There is tremendous potential for additional usage of Mail. By providing more user experiences, we believe we will increase engagement and utilization of the platform,” said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo Mail.

The company will also be compensating developers for driving demand for Yahoo’s premium service. As an incentive, developers will earn $10 for every new premium account they help to set up. 

With the intense competition between Yahoo, Microsoft and Google for the domination of free email services, the move to open up innovation might give Yahoo the much needed boost.