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Yahoo! Messenger for Mac update now available

March 26, 2010 on 1:25 pm | In Mac version | 88 Comments

An updated version of Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0 is now available for download from the Yahoo! Messenger website.

This latest version, 3.0.1.35554, includes a bug fix for display image issues, as well as a crash bug fix.

Download Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0

As always, we welcome your feedback about this latest version. To submit your feedback, go to the Help menu in Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0 and select “Send Feedback” to get started.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

New: Quickly save links to Delicious from Yahoo! Messenger

March 24, 2010 on 8:34 am | In 10 version, 9.0 version, Features, Other services | 94 Comments

This week we launched a new integration with Delicious.com, Yahoo!’s handy bookmark storage and sharing service.

Now when you send or receive a link in an IM conversation, you can easily save it to your Delicious account and share it with friends. Here’s how it works…

Imagine that during an IM conversation, a friend sends you a link that you want to save. It could be a cool new website, important driving directions or a memorable video.

To save it, hover your mouse on the hyperlinked web address and look for a small “Bookmark” button nearby. Click it and a window will open up where you can enter and save details about the link to your Delicious account.

You can enter in notes about the link (“Where Sarah stayed in New Zealand”) as well as tags that will help other Delicious users find your link (new zealand, eco resort, four stars).

If you already have an account with Delicious, you may need to first visit Delicious.com to link it to your Yahoo! ID. But if you’re new to Delicious, you can create your account using your Yahoo! ID right in Yahoo! Messenger.

Delicious is not just a place to store your bookmarks, it’s also a place to see what’s hot and trending and find other Yahoo! users that are into your favorite websites. But you can use Delicious just as a private place to store your bookmarks. When saving a link, just click the “Mark as Private” box.

Yahoo! Messenger also supports the sharing of Delicious.com updates. So when you save a link to Delicious, your friends will see your latest update in Yahoo! Messenger, on their profile page, in Yahoo! Mail etc. It’s a great way to share what sites you’re into at the moment. You can always turn off Delicious updates on the Manage My Updates page on your Yahoo! profile.

The Yahoo! Messenger / Delicious.com feature is available to users on Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 and 10. So what are you waiting for? Go try it out and start sharing your favorite links with friends.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager


Updated version of Yahoo! Messenger 10 now available

March 23, 2010 on 1:56 pm | In 10 version | Add a Comment

Today we released an updated version of Yahoo! Messenger 10 (version 10.0.0.1258).

This latest release includes several security enhancements. You can download the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger 10 from our website.

And as always, we welcome feedback about your experience with the product. Just go to the Help menu in Yahoo! Messenger 10 and select “Send Feedback…” to get started.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Watch for new “Life” ads with special Messenger features

March 19, 2010 on 6:15 am | In 10 version, 9.0 version, Features, Fun Stuff | 31 Comments

As a Yahoo! Messenger user, you’re used to seeing ads when you’re chatting with friends. We know you see ads all over the Internet, so it’s always a challenge for us to serve up compelling ads that are unique.

This weekend you’ll see ads in Yahoo! Messenger for Discovery Channel’s new Life series, which begins March 21. Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, Life is an 11-part series about the natural world around us, and is the follow up to the critically acclaimed series, Planet Earth.

Rather than just offer up the usual banner ads, we’ve partnered with Life to integrate some fun Messenger functionality into their ads. If you see a Life ad in Yahoo! Messenger, be sure to click to expand it. You can watch a video preview of the series and then with just a click, share it with your IM friends, update your status to tell your friends about the show, or even change your display image to one of the cool animal images from the show.

While we know ads can sometimes distract you from what you’re doing in Yahoo! Messenger, we hope you’ll find that these special Life ads instead enhance your IM experience by giving you something fun to share with your friends.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Connect with your website visitors on Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox

March 16, 2010 on 12:28 pm | In 10 version, Features, Mac version, Pingbox | 86 Comments

One of our lesser known but very useful products is the Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox. With a copy and paste of some code, you can embed a chat window into your website, blog or social networking page. Then when visitors come to your page, they can see when you’re online and initiate a private IM conversation with you.

My friend Jim has a Pingbox on his neighborhood blog. While he’s on Yahoo! Messenger all day, his status says “Available” in his Pingbox. When visitors come to his site, he can see the counter change next to the Pingbox in his contact list. If someone wants to chat with him, they simply start typing in the Pingbox on the website, which in turn opens up a new IM conversation for Jim. His visitors can remain anonymous or give themselves a nickname while they chat.

One of the greatest things about Pingbox is that there is no need for anyone to know your Yahoo! ID or for you to know theirs. In fact visitors to your site don’t even need a Yahoo! ID to start chatting with you. You can also turn your Pingbox on or off right from your Yahoo! Messenger 10 contact list, so if you find you’re being interrupted too often by chatty visitors, you can go dark for awhile.

Jim says one of the things he really likes is that when he hovers on the Pingbox visitors in his contact list, it will show him what page on his site that visitor is on. But mostly he likes to see the number of people that are passing through his site all day and be available to them. He says he’s gotten some good tips about neighborhood stories from his Pingbox chats.

If you have your own blog, website or social networking page, it’s easy to add a Pingbox. Just visit the Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox Studio and click the “Create a Pingbox” button. You can customize your background, text size, display name, and whether or not you want to show your display image. You can even put in a custom message that users will see in the Pingbox when you’re online, or when you’re offline. Once you’re done, you’ll receive some code that you can copy and paste into your site.

Then just login to Yahoo! Messenger using the same Yahoo! ID under which you created your Pingbox and voila – you’ll see a new group in your contact list and if you have visitors, a count next to the group name. Note that in order to appear online and receive messages from your Pingbox, you need to be signed in to Yahoo! Messenger 10 or Yahoo! Messenger for Mac. However unlike version 10, the Mac version does not display your Pingbox visitors in your contact list.

Do you use a Pingbox on your website, blog or social networking page (e.g. Facebook, MySpace)? Tell us about your experience in the comments.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

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