October 10, 2007 on 9:50 am | In News | 5 Comments
The live chat help service we offer for Yahoo! Voice subscribers is currently down due to technical difficulties. We’re working on fixing it and I’ll post an update here once I have more news (or when it’s fixed). Thanks for your patience,
UPDATE
10:25am PST: Live chat help is now up and running again.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
October 5, 2007 on 11:19 am | In Features | 8 Comments
One of the most common questions we get from users is “How do I change the name that other people see when I’m using Yahoo! Messenger?” Some users don’t want their first and last name to appear to others – they only want their Yahoo! ID or nickname to be what their online friends see.
Your display name in Yahoo! Messenger is stored under the Messenger menu > My Contact Details. When the My Contact Details window opens, you’ll see boxes for First, Middle, Last and Nickname. If all of those fields are blank, your Yahoo! ID (e.g. jomarcus07) will appear as your display name in your own Messenger window, and in the IM window when you’re chatting with friends.
If you fill in a Nickname like “BlogChick”, that will display on your own Messenger window and appear to friends when you’re IM’ing or when they add you to their friends list. The Nickname rules all – even if you have a first and last name in your Contact Details, the Nickname will be what appears in your list and what your friends see when you IM. (Note that if you IM with someone not on your friends list, that person will only see your Yahoo! ID.) When friends add you to their list, whatever name or nickname you’re displaying at the time will also be what identifies you on their list.
Keep in mind that if you had friends who already added you to their list when your first and last name were showing but you have since changed it, they will continue to see your first and last name. By removing your first and last name or changing your nickname in Contact Details, it does not then update on your friends’ lists. Once a friend has added you to their list, how you’re displayed is up to them. They can change your name, give you a new nickname. Because it’s their list, they get to choose how you appear.
Changes made to your name or nickname in Yahoo! Messenger do not affect your identity elsewhere on Yahoo!, such as Yahoo! Mail or Yahoo! Answers. Those properties have their own settings for display names so please review your account settings for each property for more information. You can also view and edit the original name you provided when registering for your Yahoo! ID by signing in at http://account.yahoo.com.
Our friends over at WackyB also have an excellent, in-depth article on this topic that includes tips on managing your display name when you’re being added to a friend’s list.
Sarah Bacon BlogChick
Product Manager
October 4, 2007 on 11:34 am | In News | 45 Comments
Some of you have left comments about this issue in the last couple of days… There was a change made to the length of status messages that reduced the maximum characters to 40. It was an inadvertent change and we’re working now on rolling it back to what it was (250 character max). Thanks for your patience!
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
October 2, 2007 on 12:16 pm | In Features | 5 Comments
I was on eBay the other night, bidding on an item I just had to have, when I noticed a message that said “Get mobile or IM alerts”. Hmm, that sounded handy so I clicked on the IM link to see what would happen…
eBay took me to a page where I could select which IM service I wanted to get alerts on. They can send you a “watching item ending alert” and/or an “outbid alert” via Yahoo! Messenger, AOL, Skype, or Windows Live Messenger. I selected Yahoo! Messenger and it then took me through a process where I linked my Yahoo! Messenger ID with my eBay account.
The next day, I got an alert in Yahoo! Messenger, letting me know that I had been outbid (I also got the standard “You’ve been outbid” email from eBay). I clicked the link in the alert and it took me right back to the listing page so I could enter a new bid.
Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 users can also get the free eBay plug-in. It sits in your Yahoo! Messenger window and gives you up-to-the-minute information on eBay items you’re watching or that you’ve bid on. Plus it has a handy search tab so you can quickly find an item a friend might mention over IM.
So if you’ve ever groaned in frustration over a lost eBay auction, try out these tools to put Yahoo! Messenger to work for you.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
