A new version of Yahoo Messenger is launching today with all kinds of new features. Among the changes in Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 beta are a redesigned interface. With over 94 million users, it’s an important communication tool for many people. The changes that they’ve made will make communication among the millions of users easier, and perhaps even more enjoyable. It will also allow users to take personalization to a whole new level.
Features include:
- Forward calls and instant messages
- New integrated Yahoo! Address Book – add, view, edit contact list from Messenger
- Personalize your messenger background with a new “skin”
- Watch videos with friends — just send your friend a link to a video and an inline player will be displayed in the conversation window for you and your friend to watch at the same time
- Share maps — meeting up with a friend? Send them a map of where you’re meeting
- Share photos from Flickr photostream right in the IM Window
Another big feature involves emoticons. Thanks to the “Emoticontest” that Yahoo held in June, there are several new emoticon’s. They include “thumbs up,” “thumbs down,” “rock on,” “it wasn’t me,” “don’t want to see it,” and “hurry up.” These emoticons can now be used in your status message so that your family and friends will know your mood just from looking at the emoticon you’ve selected to display.
Overall I’d say they made some great changes, and ones that will make the Yahoo Messenger experience that much better. The most creative change was the integration of videos into messenger by allowing you to watch a movie without needing to go to your web browser! If you’d like more info on all of the changes, Yahoo put together a great video preview which you can find here.
You know, the release of this Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 beta leaves me wondering when they’re ever going to launch Yahoo! Messenger specifically for Vista. Remember that? Back in January they launched a preview and some screenshots of what it was going to look like, and it was pretty amazing. Unfortunately the site they created for it still says “Coming Soon!”
Source: Yodel Anecdotal
Maybe Yahoo shouldn’t have added chat to their yahoo mail now should they? Then maybe I would get messenger again…These features are alright though.
I wish their SMS service worked with USCellular though…
I liked the new look for Yahoo, the most enticing feature is the flickr share and viewing video within the messenger itself.
I have always been an early adopter of the Yahoo Messengers but had a real bad experience with their 8.1 betas hopefully the 9 Beta should not crash as often as 8.1 did.
Also one compatibility they worked on this time is the file sharing option with 8 Beta they had not done this, so lets see how the 9 Beta performs.
Does their 9.0 XP version use WPF? Should be no reason actually why it shouldn’t and the Vista version should. Probably the Vista version uses Vista specific APIs.
I use Yahoo Messenger daily and the new features sound interesting although I don’t really have any need for them.
However the new interface looks really ugly to me so I’m not going to upgrade unless there’ll be some serious security problems with the older version.
The Vista version is probably just vapourware.
I was wondering about that Vista specific version too. Seems like everybody else forgot about it. I’m guessing this version is here instead.
You’ve seen the shiny Y! Messenger 9.0, now check out what Linux users are stuck with: [messenger.yahoo.com]
The Windows version seems to work fine under Wine though.
can u tell me how to remove the ad at the bottom?
Try a Google search: [google.com]
Alternatively, you can try a Yahoo! Messenger alternative such as Pidgin.
[pidgin.im]
That’s what I’m thinking!
If that’s the case, they should take down the website for the Vista version that says “Coming Soon”
Yah, I bet that page will eventually just dissapear. Just like the Y!Mail help page that said that due to popular demand, subfolders would be added.
Those are my favorite features as well. It’s nice that Google’s Flash application does that, but I don’t understand why they can’t add features like that to their actual messenger.
WPF is a Vista-only feature, and is required to get things like the blurring effect.
I actually thought that the new version looks better than the older one. It is more Web 2.0-like.
That made me laugh. I think they forgot about that version, too.
noobs… i see the public can’t use google to find things and ask here .. this yahoo version sucks just like vista does.
keep it simple people! and get more documented. peace