July 17, 2007 on 1:18 pm | In News | 16 Comments
Forrester Research released a report last week detailing teen usage of voice over IM (VoIM). Unlike voice over IP (VoIP) studies, this looks specifically at how teens are using the voice features in their instant messaging programs to communicate with friends.
In this report, 13% of the more than 5,000 teens surveyed use VoIM to calls friends or family. Among the popular IM applications, 37% of them are using Yahoo! Messenger to make calls, 32% are using Windows Live Messenger, and coming in third is Skype with 18%. AIM and Google Talk follow after that with 17% and 14%, respectively. iChat, ICQ and others make up the remaining usage.
Not surprisingly, the teens that are using VoIM have large networks of friends (well, not large by MySpace standards, but large nonetheless). 47% of those that use VoIM have 11-50 friends on their IM contact list. However, when asked how many of those they communicate with at least once a week, the majority response was “About half”. Similar trends are seen on social networking sites like MySpace where teens may have hundreds, even thousands of friends, but only communicate consistently with a small fraction of them.
Speaking of MySpace…the Forrester study also asked about the respondents’ usage of social networks. Of those that use voice features, 46% agreed with the statement “Most of the time when I’m online it’s socially related (emailing, IM’ing, MySpace)”. In addition, they’re “usually the first to tell [their] friends about new things” and they’re forging relationships that are completely digital: 32% said they have many friends online that they have never met.
I was with some teens a few weekends ago and was astonished at their amount of daily e-consumption. Texting on their phones, leaving the room to jump on the computer… it was a miracle I was able to have any sort of conversation with them at all. Maybe in their next study Forrester can find out what these teens are doing when they’re not online.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
July 13, 2007 on 9:58 am | In Features, Web version | 28 Comments
Checked out Yahoo.com lately? We launched some improvements for the Yahoo! Messenger personal assistant (or PA as we call it here in Sunnyvale). The PA is a module on the Yahoo! homepage that gives you a glimpse into your Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger friends, local weather and more. To get the most from the PA, you need to be signed in to the Yahoo! network.
The Yahoo! Messenger PA shows your list of friends that are currently online, along with their status (including sorting by group). You can then just click on a friend to start an instant message. Shock and surprise – I have Yahoo.com as my homepage so when I fire up my browser in the morning, I hover on the PA to preview my new Mail messages and to check which of my Yahoo! Messenger friends are online.
And don’t worry – viewing your list of friends in the PA does not mean you appear online to them. You still need to sign into Yahoo! Messenger to be online and to send or receive messages. Checking your PA can be a handy way of seeing who’s at the party before you join in, so to speak.
Other new PA features include the ability to collapse your groups (click the “Collapse All” link), viewing of friends’ status messages (sorry, no hyperlinks), and a scrollable interface to easily view your whole friends list instead of clicking through page by page. There’s a bug with this version – an idle icon will appear next to a friend, but the busy icon is not yet showing up. We’ll get that fixed in the next couple of weeks.
To check out the Yahoo! Messenger PA, go to http://www.yahoo.com and hover your mouse on the “Messenger” tab on the right side. Be sure you’re signed in so you can see your friends list.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
July 10, 2007 on 11:11 am | In News | 28 Comments
In anticipation of the 25th anniversary of the Emoticon, we invited Yahoo! Messenger users to take part in a survey about how they use emoticons. Below are some highlights of the sometimes surprising but always entertaining answers we received from the 40,000 respondents. Can you relate?
“Emoti-sential” – 82% of those who use Yahoo! Messenger daily use emoticons in their instant messaging (IM) conversations.
Express Yourself – The majority of survey respondents say that they best express themselves in IM using emoticons. Nearly two-thirds (61%) rely on emoticons to best express their feelings, while 17% rely on Internet slang (i.e. LOL, GR8) and 13% rely on photo sharing.
LOL – A whopping 83% of respondents say that “happiness” is one of the two emotions they express most often using emoticons. “Flirting” is the second favorite emotion and next most expressed.
I Heart You – More than half of those surveyed think that feelings of love are easier to convey using emoticons than in person – 57% of respondents would rather tell a “crush” their true feelings using an emoticon. 10% of respondents would go as far as proposing marriage to their loved one via IM.
It’s Not You, It’s Me – Some things are better said in person. Men and women both agree that telling someone “things aren’t working out” or “we should break up” is better said face to face – only 12% of females and 11% of males would opt for a break-up with an emoticon.
“Emoti-Graphic” Memory – 66% of Yahoo! Messenger users have memorized the text characters for three or more emoticons – 19% of respondents have memorized more than 10.
Gen IM – Respondents from the ages of 19 to 25 are the most avid emoticon users, with 68% in this age group using emoticons on a daily basis. But it’s not just the younger generation embracing emoticons – nearly half (48%) of respondents over the age of 50 are using emoticons in their everyday communication.
It’s a Girl Thing – 82% of respondents think that women are more likely to use emoticons than men.
You’re Fired! – Men are more prone to use IM and emoticons to fire someone (14%) versus women [11%].
See the full list of Yahoo! Messenger emoticons (including hidden ones!).
Plus, head over to Yahoo! Yodel to read an interview with the inventor of the emoticon, Professor Scott Fahlman.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
July 6, 2007 on 9:22 am | In Avatars, Fun Stuff | 22 Comments
First there was Trading Spaces, then Extreme Home Makeover… Now there’s Avatars Makeover, a new plug-in for Yahoo! Messenger for Windows (8.1; U.S. version). I’ve been having a lot of mischievous fun with it this past week.
The plug-in lets you makeover a friend’s Avatar and then send them your creation for consideration. Your friend can accept the makeover and apply the changes to their Avatar, or they can forego your fashion faux pas.
Even more fun is creating an Avatar for a friend that doesn’t have one yet. You get to start from scratch, choosing their gender, their hair, outfit, extras and more. My buddy John didn’t accept my gender-bending “RuPaul” inspired Avatar that I created for him, but he got a good laugh out of it. (You can change the gender of a friend’s Avatar even if they already have one).
Short on time? Just hit the “Makeover Magic” wand and let the plug-in create a wild new look. Once you’ve finished the makeover, click the “Send Avatar” button to start an IM to your friend that includes a link for previewing their madeover Avatar.
The Avatars Makeover plug-in is really easy to use and it’s a fun way to surprise a friend. Make changes by hovering on Avatar elements in the initial screen, or click on a category like “Change Apparel” to browse through many options. There’s even a search box so you can quickly find specific apparel or accessories (like a search on “tank” to find tank tops). Want your friend’s Avatar to be in a better mood? Click the smiley in the upper left to change it. And if you make a mistake or change your mind, handy Undo/Redo/Reset controls will get you going again.
Eventually someone will ask you “How did you do that??” To share the Avatar Makeovers plug-in, click the Options arrow in the upper right corner of the plug-in in your Messenger window and choose “Send Plug-in to a contact”.
Click here to install the Avatars Makeover plug-in (if your Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 is not running, go here to install). Now, go forth and make Yahoo! Messenger a more fashionable place!
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
July 3, 2007 on 1:09 pm | In News | 21 Comments
We’re looking for some fresh faces on the Yahoo! Messenger team. Take a look at the listings below and access the links for more information or application info. To check out more jobs at Yahoo!, visit http://careers.yahoo.com.
DESIGN
Visual Designer, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista (job ID: RX1000020314)
Are you an experienced visual designer sick of “painting by numbers” and “slapping lipstick on a pig?” Want to design a next-generation look & feel complete with transitions, animations, and even 3D? Then we’re looking for you to own the visual design of our newest product, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista. More…
PRODUCTION / PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Senior Project Manager (job ID: RX1000019126)
Are you passionate about internet-based communications technologies? Do you want to be a part of the exploding VoIP and IM markets and help define Yahoo’s role in them? The Yahoo! Messenger team seeks a talented, self-motivated Senior Project Manager to be a part of the group. More…
Product Manager 1 (job ID: RX1000023083)
You will be responsible for growing our newly launched Yahoo! Messenger for the Web service and working in a small agile startup environment. You will be leading the development of new features, focusing on the global distribution on and off the Yahoo! network, and working with our sales team to monetize the product. You will develop and prioritize product requirements and manage the roadmap for Yahoo! Messenger for the Web. More…
ENGINEERING / INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Software Systems Development Engineer (job ID: RX1000020730)
You will be responsible for designing and developing enhanced features and supporting the Voice and Messaging servers including on-going maintenance and operations. You will also work on improving the scalability and reliability of the messenger servers; development in C/C++ on Unix platform. More…
Senior Software Engineer/Server (job ID: RX1000015458)
Drive the development and deployment of the company’s next generation communication services. Ensure that the development and deployment of those services meets the company’s established technical and time-to-market goals. Responsibilities include supporting the messaging servers including ongoing maintenance and operations. More…
Senior Software Development Engineer (job ID: RX1000022857)
We’re looking for a candidate with expertise in C++, STL, algorithms & data structures, security, defensive coding & general Operating Systems concepts. Should have in-depth knowledge of the working of the TCP/IP stack, UDP & socket programming, and experience with large scale peer-to-peer distributed systems is desirable. More…
« Previous Page Next Page »
