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

Yahoo! has teamed up with the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) to provide free mammograms for uninsured women. For each person who updates his/her pink ribbon status in Yahoo! Shine and Yahoo! Pulse during the month of October, Yahoo! will donate $1 to NBCF up to $50,000.

Once you’ve updated your status, head over to Yahoo! Shine to see why others are turning pink and how others are connected to breast cancer in similar ways.

You can also show that you care by getting your Avatar the “Breast Cancer Awareness Gear” – the pink ribbon symbolizes support for finding a cure for breast cancer.

Do your part to support Breast Cancer Awareness today! I’ve updated my status…have you?

Sherrine Tan
Yahoo! Messenger Team

Mother’s Day this year is just around the corner on Sunday, May 9th.  I am sure many of you might have planned something special for your moms for this day.

Here are some of the ways Yahoo! Messenger can help to make this day even more special for you especially if you live far away from your mom.

(1). Video Calling – Real-time communication in Yahoo! Messenger took a giant leap last year with the introduction of High Quality Video Calling available in the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger. Our users have taken a liking to this feature and use it especially if they have to talk to friends/families staying far away. So, if you haven’t tried this yet, then this is a perfect time to try out Video Calling with your mom and see her on this special day.

(2). Free PC-2-PC and Paid Calling – As you know, Yahoo! Messenger always had the ability for users to make Free PC-2-PC Calls – so, if your mom is online on Yahoo! Messenger, you could make a free call and talk to her or leave a voicemail if she isn’t online- no matter how large the distance.

If your mom is not online or simply not a Yahoo! Messenger user, then you could also call her on her land-line or mobile using the premium Yahoo! Voice product where you can make local and international calls at great quality for really cheap rates.

(3). Change your Avatar in Yahoo! Messenger to express your love for mom. To do this, simply head over to Yahoo! Avatars and then search for “Mother’s Day” in the “Avatar Search” box. Chose any Avatar from the hundreds of Mother’s Day Avatars and then change your Display Image within Yahoo! Messenger to share this Avatar. Your mom’s joy will know no bounds when she logs into Yahoo! Messenger and sees your Avatar – we guarantee it.

Hope these help you to make the day really special. If you used these or any other products or features from Yahoo! or Yahoo! Messenger on this day, then do drop in a comment – we would love to hear from you.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Thyaga Vasudevan
Product Manager

Every year, Yahoo! gets into the spirit of Earth Day and educates our community about all things green. This year, our focus is on giving you fun new ways to find green information.

Yahoo!’s Earth Day site features a bunch of green trivia questions like “What’s the difference between brown eggs and white eggs?” or “Which city has the highest gas prices?”. If you need a cheat sheet, you can find the answers to these puzzles and more on Yahoo! Search.  The Earth Day site also highlights trending Earth Day topics from Yahoo! Search as well as great tips and tricks for what really matters when it comes to living a greener lifestyle.

While you’re thinking green, why not get your Avatar in the mood too? Head over to the Yahoo! Avatars website to get decked out in fun Earth Day apparel. Then help spread the word about Earth Day (April 22) to all your friends on Messenger!

Thyaga Vasudevan
Product Manager

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

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

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

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):

In Yahoo!’s new Make It Green initiative, we want to turn great ideas that improve lives and help our planet into actual products. We’re looking for the best green do-it-yourself ideas — and we need you to help us.

Submit your idea, and if it’s chosen, you could see your product on store shelves, get $2,500 and a share of the sales, and possibly appear on the Everyday Edisons TV show. Note that there is a $10 entry fee.

Need some inspiration? Dress up your Avatar in new Make It Green gear or use the Avatar Makeover plug-in to dress up your Messenger friends. Maybe together you can dream up your green idea over IM and have it turned into an actual product.

And if you’re stumped for ideas, that’s ok. We need people to vote on ideas too! Take a few moments to browse the submissions in the Make It Green Idea Gallery. Be sure to give a thumbs up to the ones you think are the best.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

The Yahoo! Green Earth Day site has tons of advice, tips and tricks for saving the earth and your pennies. Browse the virtual house on the homepage to find affordable ways to go green in every room of your abode or check out their helpful buying guides on cleaning products, water filters, and energy efficient products. Plus find out which household appliances have earned the nickname “energy vampire“.

While you’re thinking green, why not get your Avatar in the mood too? Head over to the Yahoo! Avatars website to get decked out in fun Earth Day apparel. Then help spread the word about Earth Day (April 22) to all your friends on Messenger!

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager