January 30, 2012 on 6:01 pm | In Avatars, Features, Fun Stuff | 100 Comments
Bring your virtual world to life with OurWorld IMVironment for Yahoo! Messenger! In this latest addition to the IMVironment suite, which currently includes Emoticats, Dilbert and Flickr, you can create your own styled avatar and chat with your friends in a safe, virtual space designed to reflect your personal style.
Create a unique avatar that screams YOU!
With a pool of over 30,000 items, you can uniquely customize your avatar with a vast array of virtual items, including clothing, accessories, hairstyles, and pets. Chat and dance the night away with your friends, while earning coins for new items. As you level-up your avatar, you get to unlock exclusive new features – it’s easy and fun!
Design your own virtual space
Your OurWorld Condo can be decorated with furniture items that can be sized and moved around within your new virtual home to your heart’s content. Hang out with friends, dance, chat, and play mini-games to earn new furniture for your Condo.
Launching OurWorld IMVironment
While chatting with your friends, click on the ‘IMVironments’ button on the top-right of the chat window. Simply choose the ‘OurWorld Condo Game’ icon, and in mere seconds, you’ll be chatting with your friend in your virtual Condo!
Check out the video here for a sneak peek into OurWorld.
Enjoy!
Yahoo! Messenger Team
October 27, 2009 on 9:40 am | In 10 version, 9.0 version, Avatars, Features | 3 Comments
In support of of our global brand “It’s You!” campaign, we’ve added some Yahoo! audibles and Avatars to Yahoo! Messenger.
As you may recall, we jump started the campaign with events around our infamous Yahoo! yodel, which we’ve updated and riffed on in new ways with the Yodel Studio. Now we’ve launched some audibles to go with it that let you yodel as much as you want with twists of reggae, bluegrass, hip-hop, a capella, and R&B.
To access the audibles, click on the Audibles icon in the IM window, click “More Audibles”, go to “See All Audibles”, then find “Yahoo! Yodels” in the list. Audibles are available for Yahoo! Messenger 8.1, 9.0 and 10 only.
You can also dress up your Avatar in some of the latest Yahoo! gear, including t-shirts with the slogans from the campaign: “It’s my Web, you just live in it” and “Master of the Digital Universe”. To get changed, head over to Yahoo! Avatars, click on the “Branded” tab, then click on the “Yahoo!” link.
And if you want more than virtual reality, head over to the Yahoo! Company Store to order a real live t-shirt or other Y! gear.
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
October 7, 2009 on 2:41 pm | In Avatars | 17 Comments
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Yahoo! has a lot going on across the network to support the effort.
For starters, you can change your Avatar to display a pink ribbon, the symbol of support for finding a cure for breast cancer. Just head over to the “Show your Support” section on the Avatars site and click on the third page of items.
We also started a campaign to get people to update their Yahoo! profile status message to show their support. When we launched it on October 1, we pledged to donate $50,000 to The National Breast Cancer Foundation once 50,000 Yahoo! users made their update. Good news! We reached that goal and as of this writing, we’re nearing the 80,000 mark.
Even though we’ve reached our goal, we hope you’ll still update your Profile status to support those affected by breast cancer.
Or click here to change your Yahoo! Messenger status to read “I support Breast Cancer Awareness Month”. Note that the link to change your status will only work if you have Yahoo! Messenger running. You could also change your Yahoo! Messenger skin to “twinkle pink”, just to show your desktop that you support the cause.
Need some retail therapy? Head over to Yahoo! Shopping and check out some items whose proceeds benefit breast cancer research.
While Yahoo! has always powered up the network to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this year is a little more significant as our own CEO, Carol Bartz, is a survivor.
Thanks for your support,
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
July 2, 2009 on 10:24 am | In 9.0 version, Avatars, Fun Stuff | 43 Comments
This Saturday, July 4th is Independence Day here in the U.S. While you’ll probably be out enjoying hot dogs on the grill, summer sunshine and fireworks, here’s a few ways you can get in the spirit with Yahoo! Messenger.
Stars & Stripes for your Avatar
Visit the Fourth of July section on Yahoo! Avatars and dress your Avatar in some patriotic gear. Choose from flag-themed clothing and backgrounds filled with fireworks.
Skin it red or blue
Change your Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 skin to ruby red, icy blue or sky blue. Click the gold dot near the very top of the 9.0 Messenger window.
Wave your flag
Don’t forget about the hidden emoticon for the US flag. Hover your mouse on the emoticon to see the text shortcut ==> 
Red, white & blue display images
Click on one of the images below to change your display image in Yahoo! Messenger 9.0. If you’re on a different version of Messenger, right click and save the image to your desktop. Then manually add it to your Yahoo! Messenger.


Happy Fourth of July to everyone!
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
June 11, 2009 on 6:19 am | In Avatars | 39 Comments
This week, Comedy Central’s Colbert Report is broadcasting from Baghdad’s Camp Victory in support of U.S. troops serving in Iraq. The top-rated comedy show has teamed up with DonorsChoose.org for their “Support Our Troops” campaign, designed to raise money for public schools and support the children who make great sacrifices of their own while their parents serve our country.
The fundraising drives features a friendly competition among the Armed Forces –- Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard — to see which branch’s supporters can have the biggest impact on classrooms. As of June 9th, they have raised more than $130,000, and the Army is barely hanging on to the lead (check out the leaderboard as the tension builds in real-time).
To help raise awareness for this effort, Yahoo! Avatars teamed up with Colbert to make some custom Stephen Colbert Avatars and accessories. So go put on your Colbert Avatar gear to show your support for the “Support Our Troops” campaign. You can also donate to the campaign to help fund the classroom projects.
Oh and don’t be fooled by Colbert’s full head of hair in his Avatar pics. In a recent show of solidarity, Stephen Colbert, on President Obama’s order, had his head shaved by show guest General Ray Odierno. Watch the video to see the clippers in action (go to the 4:00 mark for the good stuff):
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
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