2006’s Innovations in Instant Messaging
January 17, 2007 on 4:32 pm | In News |
Old school instant messenger users remember when IM was just a back- and-forth exchange in plain text, and if you were feeling creative, an emoticon or an LOL. Today a world of fun and productivity is open to IM users as they connect by voice, animations, shared files, photos, and even video.
For IM innovation, 2006 was a watershed year. Nick Gonzalez of TechCrunch writes that the most exciting new features were interoperability, flexible identities, rich media chat, in-browser chat, location-based chat, and contextual chat.
Interoperability between instant messaging programs lets users communicate with friends who use different chat clients. A high point of our year was when interoperability between Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger became a reality last summer, creating the world’s largest instant messaging community. This means that you can have Windows Live Messenger friends on your Yahoo! contact list, and you can IM them right from Yahoo! Messenger.
Flexible identities are nothing new to savvy Yahoo! users. When you create a Yahoo! profile, you have the option to create an alias separate from your Yahoo! ID that you can use on various Yahoo! services, including Yahoo! Messenger. Multiple profiles are central to new services like the Flash-based client Wablet.
Last year, Yahoo! also introduced rich-media chat, which incorporates web cams, microphones, and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Gonzalez writes, “While voice and video does not lend itself to simultaneous conversations many IM users carry on, rich media integration brings a subtleness and depth absent from text-based IM.”
Alongside Yahoo! and Wablet, Meebo, RadiusIM, InCircles, Skype, and PalTalk are also pushing the envelope, making it easier than ever to connect and share with friends.
As Yahoo! Senior Vice President Brad Garlinghouse wrote in September, “When I look at the competitive dynamics around IM, I get really jazzed…. At the end of the day, the biggest winner…is you, the consumer.”
As we continue our work on Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista, 2007 is already off to a great start.We’re looking forward to bringing many more enhancements to your IM experience. You can read about them all, right here, on the blog.
Carole McManus
Community Manager
great
thank you Yahoo ! team .
Comment by Reza.com — January 17, 2007 #
I’ve long believed that VOICE must surely overcome text as the main IM medium.
And as a long time user/trier of all IM programs, I believe it’s now firmly YM that rules the voice waves.
Thank you for everything, dear Yahoo! __º¿º__
Comment by Eagle_Kiwi (Ian - N.Z.) — January 17, 2007 #
The Yahoo Messenger beta for Macs is nice, but on 1/18/07 it began crashing at launch of all my computers at different 3 locations. What’s up? The old version works on all computers at all locations.
Comment by Brian Whitelaw — January 18, 2007 #
Something needs to be done about the bots flooding and booting in Yahoo Chat Help Room 1!
Comment by Jack — January 18, 2007 #
So, when is the Linux version going to get all the features that Windows users have? We’re stuck with text messaging only still…
Comment by S. Vetter — January 18, 2007 #
None of my messenger friends are ever on! I hate that.
Comment by John — January 18, 2007 #
I’ve been forced to download the new 3.1 beta version for OS X, but now I can’t connect. it goes through the log-on motions and times out stating that the servers may be busy or unavailable for maintenance. What gives? The old version would connect, but all the functionality is gone.
Comment by Steve — January 18, 2007 #
i just want to know how can i go back to the old school type of instant messaging as you call it. this new high tech stuff is good for those who can afford it and all but me i would just like to stick right now with the old school type but i cannot seem to be able to get into my messenger box? could you please help me? thank you
Comment by Renee Payton — January 18, 2007 #
In 1999 I was writing vusial basic 5 ??? scripts for a sole company of ONE for a searching engine website it was very hard work and now I not have not desire to write programs anymore.
It is like been there, done that. got the shirt!
After Yahoo IM was “redone” in named of the new version of network(Client/Server/P2P), fake IMs, and meta data forms and so on.
We were a happy bunch(the old school) and we chated with friends and interesting people.
Sometimes,not all of the NEW is good or necessary in people’ life, learned to see the difference, it is my advice to the NEW Schoolers!
Muahhh
SR
Comment by HelloNasty — January 18, 2007 #
Do you have any behavioural data about the way people are using IM application together with voice?
Comment by BZatfring — January 19, 2007 #
Check out the new embedded version of Kool IM.
http://www.koolim.com
Comment by nadia — January 22, 2007 #
why not just 1 window for the avatars in messnger instaed of 2 let the avatars stand side by side it will be easier to do the *action text* thing then ?
Comment by heywhynot — January 28, 2007 #
I’ve used both the old Mac Messenger (2.5.3) and the new Mac 3.0 Beta 1. I love many of the new features listed above (sharing richer files, interoperability, privacy setting per ID), but there’s a few things about the old UI that should be carried forward (or offered as options).
IM is still primarily about conversation. The following things get in the way of that:
- The 3D ID bars added in between each post are pretty, but they’re also distracting, fill up the message window and break up the conversation. Imagine if you were talking to someone and a pretty 1 second tone sounded before every sentence you or the other person said… pretty annoying, huh? You’ll get the same “updated” effect by merely giving a 3D treatment to the poster’s IDs, but leaving most of the space in Messenger window for what the PARTICIPANTS want to say.
- There’s only a few ways to add expression to text. One is breaking entries into paragraphs before posting (like this one). When you removed the Send button, you removed that option. Please put back a way for us to add carriage returns to our posts.
- The 3.0 alert sounds are cool and all, but most are too subtle. I have to constantly remind myself what each one means. When you hear a door knock you know someone wants to come in, no training necessary. Keep the old sounds along with the new.
Please add the above as options along with the ability to revert to the old style presentation. Don’t throw out what worked about the original in an attempt to make the new version more visually (and auditorally) interesting. Thanks
Comment by Eric — February 1, 2007 #
Thank you alot for helping me out
Comment by Angela Collado — February 4, 2007 #
hmmm…. sounds nice if you’re a PC user….however, I have a Mac, and a lot of these features aren’t available for me.
Comment by gail — February 12, 2007 #
How do i access yahoo chat room w/ my 3.0 ver. of messanger HELP
Comment by jay — February 13, 2007 #
Quite frankly I can’t believe y’all are pushing the VISTA version of Yahoo Messenger when you haven’t released a second beta of the Mac OS X version. It’s been awhile since beta one — and I agree I hate the new sounds. Short of downloading the positively ancient 2.5.3 version and hacking it to bits for the sound files, I want to just choose the old sounds.
Oh, and how about VOICE chat?! I’m tired of the fact that I can’t even voice chat with the PC clients.
Thank you,
~Yohannon~
Comment by Yohannon — February 13, 2007 #
please help me , some fool is flooding my messeger with instant ,messages and i cant log it in , when i do i get millions of messages … cna yahoo help me …..
Comment by thilanki — February 15, 2007 #
Nice site you have!
Comment by dizionario — February 22, 2007 #
please, please! make the MAC version similar to the windows version…feeling very restricted here…
Comment by phil — February 24, 2007 #
PLEASE FIX the Mac version so it is fully compatible with the winblows version! This is total & complete BS - yahoo is making plenty of $$$$ off of Mac users yet they fail to support the platform, I find this ridiculous.
Comment by Alex — March 3, 2007 #