Here’s what About.com had to say about our latest version:
For what its worth, Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 delivers a pretty smooth experience from start to finish. The recent addition of access to contacts on Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger) makes Yahoo! pretty strong competition for the AIM/ICQ client and other standalone single protocol clients; in fact, if I were the others, I would take a page from the Yahoo! book about what is right with their client, including the strong deliverance of experience-making features, such as Yahoo’ new in-line media player, new voice call features and a wide-range of new personalization options.
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to vote. We really appreciate it!
Last week, Flickr.com announced its new video feature, allowing Flickr Pro users to upload videos and share them online alongside their photos.
As a result, we added support for Flickr videos to the inline media player in Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 Beta. If you share a Flickr video link or a friend shares one with you, you can watch the video right in the IM window.
Unlike conventional video sharing services like Yahoo! Video or Youtube, Flickr videos are designed to be “long photos” that capture slices of life. To encourage this, Flickr has limited the length of uploaded videos to 90 seconds. While that may seem like a really short video, it’s ideal for sharing those clips you capture on your digital camera or mobile phone (which often go unshared). Check out a couple of the uploaded videos from the early beta testers:
To share your own Flickr videos during an IM conversation, just copy and paste the link from the browser address bar when you’re on the video page (e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fraying/2391084921/).
To find out more about the new Flickr video features, check out the Flickr blog.
After all, it is an election year… In March, About.com asked their readers to nominate their favorite instant messengers for their first ever “IM Best Awards”.
Yahoo! Messenger was named as a finalist in three categories. Woo hoo! We hope you’ll take a moment to vote for us and help us win:
Yahoo! Messenger for the Web is really handy when you’re on the road or can’t download and install the full version of Messenger. But there are a couple of things that may prevent it from becoming your everyday version of Yahoo! Messenger. One is that Yahoo! Messenger for the Web runs in a full browser window which makes it easy to close accidentally. The other is that while it does play a sound when a new IM comes in, there is no “in your face” pop-up reminders for a new message like on the full version of Messenger.
Recently one of our engineers that worked on Yahoo! Messenger for the Web, Jeremy Johnstone, decided to try an experiment on his Mac that would alleviate some of these issues with the product. Using a free program for Mac OSX Leopard called Fluid, he developed a site-specific browser application for Yahoo! Messenger for the Web. By customizing the Fluid application with some code, he was able to create a desktop version of Yahoo! Messenger for the Web on his Mac that includes:
A full window interface but without the usual browser clutter
Growl notifications for IMs received when the application isn’t in focus
Dock badge updates with the count of unread IMs
Visit Jeremy’s blog for more details on how to do this on your own Mac (including the customized code you’ll need for Fluid), or watch the quick video tutorial below:
When we first released Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 Beta, some users were upset about the changes made to the contact list. Compared to its older sibling 8.1, the display images were larger and positioned on the right, and there was a lot more space devoted to each contact in the list. For users with lots of contacts, this can mean a lot of scrolling to find a friend in their list.
In response to the feedback, we included a preference in the Contacts menu for the appearance of the contact list. While this has been available in 9.0 Beta for awhile now, not everyone knows about it so I figured it was worth mentioning again.
There are two modes for your contact list – Detailed and Compact. The detailed list mode shows larger display images for your friends, puts status messages on a separate line, and spaces out your contacts. In contrast, the compact list mode tightens up your list by putting the friend’s name and status on one line, and uses small display images.
To change your contact list mode, just click on the “Contacts” menu at the top of your main Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 window and choose “Compact List” or “Detailed List”. This preference will remain even after you sign out of Yahoo! Messenger 9.0.
Thanks to everyone for voting for Yahoo! Messenger in the About.com 2008 IM Awards. We just found out this morning that we did win one of our categories: Best Instant Messenger Experience for Yahoo! Messenger 9.0.
Last week, 
After all, it is an election year…
In March, About.com asked their readers to nominate their favorite instant messengers for their first ever “IM Best Awards”.
