March 18, 2008 on 10:15 am | In Avatars, Features, Fun Stuff | 4 Comments
It’s that time of year again when students, alumni and fans around the country put on their favorite college colors to cheer on their team in the NCAA College Basketball tournament.
Grown men will cry, women who don’t normally follow sports will become rabid with NCAA fever, and productivity in offices will take a hit as workers follow the games from their cubicles. Of course Yahoo! Messenger has a few items to further fuel your basketball obsession…
When it comes time to taunt your friends about their team losing or making a bad play, check out the NCAA audibles. There’s a referee ready to charge your friend with an offensive foul, a baseball cap-wearing superfan (complete with horn), and a laid back player who illustrates what it means when the defense is “taking a vacation”. To access the NCAA audibles, click the Audible icon in your IM window, click “More Audibles”, then “See All Audibles” and select NCAA Basketball (Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 or 9.0 Beta only).
You can also show your team pride by dressing the part. Head over to the NCAA section on Yahoo! Avatars to find jerseys from over 25 schools including Duke, University of North Carolina, UCLA, Kentucky and more.
To find out more about the tournament and follow all the action, check out NCAA Basketball on Yahoo! Sports. You still have time to pick your teams before the first game – download the tournament brackets: Men’s | Women’s
And if you’re on the go and want to follow what’s happening, go to http://m.yahoo.com/ncaa from your mobile phone for the latest scores and highlights.
Go team!
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
February 14, 2008 on 12:15 am | In Avatars, Events, Fun Stuff | 3 Comments
Does your Avatar have the hots for another Avatar? Ready to make the ultimate commitment?
Yahoo! has partnered with Diet Dr. Pepper for a Valentine’s Day promotion called “Valentine’s in Vegas: Marry my Avatar”. Type in the Yahoo! ID of the Avatar you want to get hitched to, and voila, you’ll see your betrothed avatars together in front of a Las Vegas wedding chapel (Elvis not included).
To make sure your Avatar is appropriately dressed before taking the plunge, head over to Yahoo! Avatars and enter “wedding” into the search box.
If your Avatar does elope to Vegas for a quickie wedding, it’s only right that you send out picture proof to your friends and family (or the paparazzi). Just click to share it on del.icio.us, Yahoo! Messenger or Facebook.
Check out the Valentine’s in Vegas gallery to see Avatars that have already tied the knot today.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
November 12, 2007 on 11:17 am | In Avatars, Features, Fun Stuff | 47 Comments
Up for a little field trip? Head over to the new Avatar Towns, a virtual world designed especially for your Avatar fashion needs. Now you can drop in to different stores to find just the right outfit for the virtual you. Cruise by Island Style to find the perfect swimsuit, or jog into Top Score for some sportier attire. And even though Halloween is over, you can still pretend to be someone else after a stop at Costumes ‘R’ Us.
When you arrive in Avatar Towns, be sure to say hello to Jessica and get some directions on where to go. Once you’re in a shop, you’ll be placed on a modeling pedestal while you browse the racks. Click on items that you want to try on and you’ll see them appear on your Avatar. If you don’t like the item once it’s on, click on it again to remove it.
At the bottom of your pedestal are some helpful controls – Redo and Undo arrows, a Save button, plus a button to toggle your background on and off. When you’d done, click the Exit button to return to the main street where you can then head into other stores.
Avatar Towns is in Beta for now, but there are plans to roll out other towns so you can shop ‘til you drop. I just hope they add a spa – my Avatar is going to need somewhere to relax after all this shopping! 
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
P.S. - Into Star Wars? Check out the new collection of Star Wars avatar gear.
September 18, 2007 on 10:30 am | In Avatars | 15 Comments
Fashion Week blazed through New York City recently, but across the globe, India’s fashions were also on display. Yahoo! India partnered with the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW), powering the WIFW website and providing coverage of the fashion-filled extravaganza.
Apart from fashion buzz, designer and model profiles, event photos and videos, the site also featured a unique online contest, inviting users to vote for their favorite Yahoo! Fashion Avatar. Three top Indian designers – Malini Ramani, Raghvendra Rathore and Manish Arora – created their own personal version of a Yahoo! Avatar. Check out their designs and see who won.
For more India-inspired Avatar fashions, visit Yahoo! Avatars and search on “India”.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
July 6, 2007 on 9:22 am | In Avatars, Fun Stuff | 15 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
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