The new Yahoo! Messenger is all about you

Posted October 29th, 2007 at 9:29 pm by Sabrina Ellis, Yahoo! Messenger

 19 Comments / Filed in: Trends & News

These days, it’s all about personalization and sharing. From your picture on a postage stamp to your Tivo lineup, it’s all about how you like it. From blogging every move to emailing that sneezing panda video, you have a propensity to share (maybe even over-share). You’ll see we kept that in mind with the newest version of Yahoo! Messenger, which I have the honor of unveiling today.

We’re not the only ones addicted to Yahoo! Messenger. With a growing user base of more than 94 million users worldwide, Yahoo! Messenger is often one of the first communication tools that most people see and use when they turn on their computers every day. And, on average, they spend nearly an hour a day on Yahoo! Messenger. Our team appreciates the magnitude there and making Yahoo! Messenger even more indispensable is what gets us out of bed every morning.

Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 Beta, designed for Windows, sports not only a new look, it lets you share videos, Flickr photos, and personalize your experience in all new ways. It also recognizes that you do more than IM your contacts and it’s now available in more countries than ever. Here’s a rundown of the new features:

• More contact options. When you hover over a friend in your contact list, you’ll see you can send an instant message, launch a voice call, or text message your friend’s mobile phone with one click. You’ll also note we’ve integrated Yahoo! Address Book so you can view, contact, and edit friends from your contact list. Got a lot of friends? We’ve added a search bar to help you track someone down quickly.
• Monitoring your mood. You can personalize your Messenger windows with the skin of your choice and include emoticons in your status message so that friends and family know your mood – good or bad – all the time.
• Get your media in-line. Sharing images, videos, maps and more is a whole new experience. Just send a link to a video and the in-line player will show it right in the conversation window for both you and your friend to see. So, when your friend asks for directions to the movie theater you’re meeting at that night, send a map that displays right in the IM window.
• More fun with Flickr. If you use Flickr, we know you love to share. So now you can easily share photos from your Flickr photostream right in the IM window.
• Express yourself. Remember our “Emoticontest” from June? Today’s new Messenger features our six attitude-filled emoticon winners: “thumbs up,” “thumbs down,” “rock on,” “it wasn’t me,” “don’t want to see it,” and “hurry up.”
• Global ties. It’s not just the features we’ve enhanced in this newest version of Yahoo! Messenger. We’ve also expanded into six new markets with localized versions for Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, and Vietnam..

In case we haven’t met, I’m the new VP for Yahoo! Messenger and I’m psyched to be part of this great team. Before joining the Messenger team, I’d spent six years working on Yahoo! Mail so I’ve been helping users communicate for quite awhile. I’m anxious for your feedback. Try out the new beta and let us know what you think. And head over to the Yahoo! Messenger blog for regular updates from our team.

Sabrina Ellis
VP, Yahoo! Messenger

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19 Comments Add your own

Doug | October 30th, 2007 at 5:36 am

I’m psyched to be part of this great team.

You’re “pysched?” What are you, 12?

coxy | October 30th, 2007 at 5:59 am

*approaches with caution*

I like the current version and not sure (visually) of the new one. I’m downloading now and will be sure to leave some feedback after some time trying it out.

Jim McAnally | October 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am

Hello? Mac version please?!

H G | October 30th, 2007 at 9:13 am

Sabrina,

Why does the yahoo messenger on the mac not have voice capability even though it has a webcam capability. How backward is that????

Harnish
User experience designer

GuillaumeB | October 30th, 2007 at 10:34 am

Not only is Y! Messenger for Mac painfully reaching 3 beta but it clear that the folks who worked on Yahoo Messenger for Vista changed their mind…. So do you intend to release two messengers for Windows and add another good layer of peanut butter when Mac users are asking for basic features?

Michael | October 30th, 2007 at 10:34 am

Another chime in for Messenger to keep parity with the Windows version!

Steven Nguyen | October 30th, 2007 at 2:02 pm

that’s great.Thank you so much

Danny Howard | October 30th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Congratulations.

Personally, I really like Pidgin, because it supports just about every Messenger protocol imaginable, from Yahoo! to AIM to IRC to Windows . . . as long as Yahoo! Messenger is a Walled Garden that only works if all your contacts are Yahoo! users, I don’t see much point in using this software, even if it “tracks my mood” . . .

Good Luck!

Cheers,
-danny

LarryJ | October 30th, 2007 at 8:57 pm

Just downloaded the beta, although reluctantly with all the problems with 360, but I do love the new look. Now as long as it works the same or better than previous versions of YM then I’ll be satisfied.

Foxy Goddess | November 1st, 2007 at 6:04 am

I tried out the new Yahoo! Messenger, but could not for the life of me find a setting to display my contacts by their Yahoo! ID, instead of their name. It also appears that the skins have gone. Will these features be reinstated at a later time? These two things (mostly the former) saw me uninstall and go straight back to the previous version within minutes.

I prefer seeing my contacts by their ID, because I don’t know every chatter’s real name - aside from which, I dislike real names being disclosed online. Sure, it’s the choice of the person in question, but I know from experience that there are MANY who don’t realise their names are displayed till it’s too late. In my opinion, that’s a safety issue and people ought to know and be given a choice. I thought the whole reason for having a screen name was to provide a certain amount of privacy and anonymity? I can tell you that I’ve been able to locate more than one person in real life, due to the fact that they did not know their name (that they gave during signup) was being displayed due to Yahoo’s default settings. In the case of a teenagers, I see BIG safety issues here. And before anyone harps on about “parental responsibility” don’t try to tell me that it’s realistic for a parent in today’s world to monitor their children so closely that they can’t sign up for Yahoo! at a library, school or friend’s house. Heck, why not use a mobile device? Yahoo! needs to change the default settings in this case.

As for the skins, I just prefer being able to have my Messenger looking the way I want it.

Other than that, I have been using Yahoo! Messenger for years and have always loved it. It’s MUCH better than MSN, and the emoticons are the best by far. :)

Sarah Bacon | November 1st, 2007 at 9:56 am

Hi Harnish and Guillaume,

Thanks for your comments. We’re working on getting voice into our Yahoo! Messenger for Mac client. It’s been more challenging than we expected, but it’s actively being worked on. We did recently release a new version that has some improvements - you can find out more here:
http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com/blog/2007/10/25/new-release-of-mac-30-beta-2/

And no, we haven’t changed our minds on Yahoo! Messenger for Vista. :) That is also under very active development and will be released soon. We will then have two versions of Yahoo! Messenger for Windows - one for XP & Vista (9.0), and one specifically for Vista. The latest post on the Vista version can be found here:
http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com/blog/2007/10/17/yahoo-messenger-for-windows-vista-getting-closer/

Thanks,

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager, Yahoo! Messenger
http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com

alex_mayorga | November 2nd, 2007 at 12:32 pm

Ms. Bacon,

What about a Linux version? I’ve even had to ask for a refund of my Y! Voice credits once I took the switch and deleted my Windows partition.

Thanks in advance.

Ajith | November 3rd, 2007 at 3:30 am

Have a look at this link

http://www.imagine-windowslive.com/Messenger/IM/Home/

How about YHOO coming with such an initiative?

mia | November 6th, 2007 at 1:02 am

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BUZZ BUTTON ON THE MAC UPGRADE???
I AM SO SAD THAT IT”S GONE. PLEASE BRING IT BACK:(

Edeline | December 3rd, 2007 at 7:52 pm

@mia:

The buzz is still there. You can Apple+G it or you can modify the toolbar (View > Customize Toolbar) by dragging the Buzz icon back onto the toolbar of a ym window.

Beth Wellington | January 1st, 2008 at 10:34 pm

Since you have discontinued the product I did use, 360, I won’t be trying any of your new products. Why should I be loyal to a company that is disloyal to its users.

Graham | January 12th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

will the windows version of Yahoo messenger with voice work on a mac? I just recently made the switch from PC to mac and have lost all the capabilities of IMing that I previously enjoyed on my PC. I’m now wondering if switching technologies was such a wise decision.

Chantal-Denise | February 1st, 2008 at 6:28 am

Im using this beta now and now i can’t see my ym list :(

it’s like a new page of paper, Blank and white. Rar. What happened?

Miranda | February 19th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

when will there be different skins for the new yahoo messenger hoping to find one to match my home page love the tiger print and love to see leopard print love the big cats well hope to get a response