With the availability of our world-class Yahoo! Messenger services for Android, we’re making it easier than ever for users to access fast, reliable, and feature-rich Yahoo! experiences on one of the fastest growing platforms in the market.

Yahoo! Messenger Android App is available for download via the Android Market globally, and support OS 2.0 or higher, including the popular Motorola Droid, HTC Incredible, Google Nexus One.

With the new Yahoo! Messenger App for Android, you can:

• Easily message friends, check friends’ status updates and availability and update their personal status and availability
• Multitask and stay connected with the App working in the background; with push notifications, consumers can easily catch new messages and friend requests
• Full use of emoticons and rich text formatting
• Send photos to friends directly from the phone’s camera or the photo gallery
• Chat with MSN/Windows Live Messenger friends
• Send instant messages to friends via SMS text message*

We are extremely excited about this release and can’t wait for you to get started. Download the Yahoo! Messenger App from the Android Market on http://mobile.yahoo.com/messenger/android

Andreas Nordin

Product Manager, Yahoo! Messenger

*This feature is currently only available when sending to numbers in Canada, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam.

The beta launch of Yahoo! Messenger One represents a refreshing approach to all your communications needs.  How so?  Simply put, this all-in-one universal address book and communications hub enables you to find, connect and communicate with friends the way you want, whether it’s email,  instant messaging or SMS – it’s your choice!  What’s more, it’s packed with a slew of user benefits including:

• Mobile registration: You can sign up for a new Yahoo! ID right from within Yahoo! Messenger One app.  No PC/laptop needed. How convenient is that!
• Unified inbox: Now you have all your email, IM and SMS conversations in one easy-to-use-and-access inbox, you can always keep track of all your conversations, hassle free.
• Native address book syncing: Simply upload your contacts to Yahoo! so you can access them from one place, anywhere.
• Message archive and search: With all your conversations stored in the cloud, you will never have to worry about losing your messages or having to delete them ever again.
• IM and SMS chats: You can still chat with you contacts even if they are not on Yahoo! by using SMS (presently supported for Indonesian and US mobile contacts only).
• News Content: Lets you always stay up to date with the latest news, and you can share articles with your friends.

Yahoo! Messenger One will be rolled out first in Indonesia and available in Bahasa Indonesian (the local language).  Indonesia does not require any introduction.  Still, this is the world’s fourth-most populous country with more than 230 million people and about 30 million Internet users.  With its mobile phone customer base having more than doubled to 165 million users in less than three years, and with  popular devices like Blackberry smartphones and low cost clones growing at a fast rate, it is not all that surprising mobile users have outpaced active Internet users by more than 5-to-1.  Clearly this is a nation on the move and we are bringing Yahoo! Messenger One right to the users.

Yahoo! Messenger One is currently available for Blackberry 9000, Blackberry 9700, Blackberry 8900, and Blackberry 9630 devices. Just direct your mobile browser to http://m.yahoo.com/one to download the app and try it out. In future releases, Yahoo! Messenger One is expected to support additional devices and platforms. We’d also love to get your feedback so we can keep innovating and improving the user experience.

Karen Yeo

Yahoo! Messenger Team

In an effort to maintain our high quality and security standards, we will officially retire the Yahoo! Messenger version 1.0 for iPhone and iPod Touch on June 15th, 2010. This means that if you are currently using this version on your iPhone or iPod Touch, then you will no longer be able to sign in and use it after the retirement date of June 15th, 2010.

We have put together some commonly asked questions that should answer most of your questions.

1. Which iPhone/iPod Touch products are going to start the end-of-life process?

Yahoo! Messenger Version 1.0 for the iPhone & iPod Touch will be end-of-lifed on June 15^th. That means starting June 15^th you will not be able to sign in into Messenger using this version 1.0 app.

2. Why is the above product version being end-of-lifed?

Version 1.0 was our first Yahoo! Messenger release on the App Store. Since then, over the course of the year, we have added many useful features that provide you a much better experience on the device.

3. How do I know if the app that I am using is being end-of-lifed?

There are a couple of different ways you will know if you are using an app that is being end-of-lifed:

      1. You will receive a system IM from Yahoo which will notify you about the end of life plans. If you received such a message you are probably using a version that is being end of lifed.

      2. You could alternatively check the version of your app by tapping on the settings tab in your app and looking for the version information in the “About” section. If the version says 1.0 then your app is being end-of-lifed and you will need to upgrade.

4. If I am using the version that is being end-of-lifed, what version of the product should I upgrade to?

There are two ways you can upgrade to the latest version:

      1. Tapping the App Store icon on your iPhone and search for Yahoo! Messenger (you may also see an update alert on your App Store icon)
      2. Or click here to download it through iTunes.

The latest version requires your device to have iPhone OS 3.0 or newer. If you already have the right OS then you can simply follow the above steps. Otherwise you will first need to upgrade your device to a newer OS. You can find more about that here. Once you have upgraded your device, you can come back and follow the steps above.

5. What are some benefits of upgrading to the latest version?

There are a lot of cool features we added since we launched our first version. These features will significantly improve your Yahoo! Messenger experience. It will be difficult to list all of them but here are a few that were most requested by our users:

• New Message alerts (Push Notifications)
  • We’ve taken advantage of Apple’s 3.0 push notifications platform to enable new message notifications. Now, you will be notified when a new IM comes to your iPhone, even if the Yahoo! Messenger app is closed (or your phone is asleep).
• Stay online for up to 2 weeks
  • The Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone app will keep you signed in and visible to your Yahoo! Messenger friends for up to two weeks. When the app is closed on your phone, your status will show you as online but in an Idle state. Friends can IM you and when they do, you’ll receive a new message notification as described above.
• The ability to chat with your Windows Live contacts
• And many more.

If you had any further questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comments area.

Thyaga Vasudevan
Product Manager

The iPad is the latest and probably the grandest entry to the world of Tablet computers – 9.7-inch display, half-inch thick, and weighing in at just a pound and a half. It runs the iPhone OS on it so all the same apps you use on your iPhone, like Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone, will be available for the iPad. Please try it out and let us know if you face any issues.

Talking about iPad Apps, Yahoo! introduced the Yahoo! Entertainment for iPad on Saturday. Some of you may have even downloaded this app over the weekend. This has wowed both consumers and press alike. TechCrunch has voted it as one of the best iPad apps.  Using editorialized, real-time content, this Yahoo! Entertainment App surfaces and recommends TV shows, entertainment news, TV listings, book reviews, and a wide variety of popular videos from across the Web. Read more on the Yahoo! Entertainment Blog.

Do you plan to buy an iPad in future? – if you have already bought one, then which is your favorite App? – as always, please feel free to leave your comments.

Thyaga Vasudevan
Product Manager

Now you can take the best of Yahoo! Messenger with you and stay in touch with friends through your iPhone or iPod Touch, no matter where you are.

A short demo video is included below. Here are the top features of the new app:

Instant message: Send text messages back and forth with your friends, including emoticons and web links.

Photo sharing: Take a photo on your iPhone and send that, or grab one from your photo gallery to share.

Stealth settings: Sign in as invisible, or change your status to invisible once you’re in the app.

Custom status message: Enter a custom status message for your friends to see. You can even include a web link with it.

Recent conversations archive: Under Messages, tap a contact and you’ll see your most recent conversation. You can type in a message from there to start chatting again.

Special idle state: If you have to leave the app for whatever reason, like a call comes in or you click a link in an IM that takes you to Safari, the Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone app will keep you signed in but change your status to idle. That way you can continue to receive messages and provided you return to the app within ten minutes, pick up where you left off.

Additional settings: Tap the Settings icon to change the sort order of your contact list, or to show or hide offline contacts in your list.

Check out the short video below to see the app in action (click here for a high quality version of the video). Background music in the demo was created by one of our own team members, Felix and his Slimcat Productions (thanks!).

The Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone application is free and can be downloaded through the iTunes App Store or through the App Store on your iPhone or iPod Touch (search for Yahoo! Messenger).

Even if you don’t have an iPhone, Yahoo! Messenger is available for other types of mobile phones including the Blackberry. Visit our mobile site to find out what works with your phone.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

UPDATE: The Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone app is now available. Click here for more info

Enjoy,

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Click here for higher quality version (Quicktime required)

In addition, the mobile team fixed the MySpace log in issue. Turns out that users with a lot of contacts were experiencing timeouts when oneConnect would try to log in to get Pulse updates etc. This should be fixed now so if you were experiencing issues before, please try it again.

You can install the oneConnect update on your iPhone by visiting the Yahoo! Mobile website, or just search for oneConnect in the AppStore on your iPhone or in iTunes. If you already have oneConnect installed, you should see a red icon on the AppStore icon on your iPhone or in iTunes, indicating an update is available.

To leave feedback on this latest version or to see what other oneConnect users are talking about, head over to the oneConnect suggestion board.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Here’s a quick rundown of oneConnect’s top features:

Full address book
oneConnect integrates contacts from your Yahoo! Address Book, iPhone, and many social networks. To add social networks to your oneConnect, tap on the “Settings” icon at the bottom, then hit “My Accounts”. Once you’ve added a social network account, oneConnect will import all your contacts. Tap on the “Contacts” icon in the bottom bar to access them.

Send and receive instant messages, SMS
Once you sign in with your Yahoo! ID, your entire Yahoo! Messenger contact list will appear. Just tap on the “Message” icon in the bottom bar, then tap the “+” in the upper right corner to start a new IM (or start one from a friend’s listing under “Contacts”). You can insert your favorite emoticons into your conversation and you’ll see your Avatar or display image as well as your friend’s.

When you’re messaging, you’ll notice a “Y!” icon to the left of the text box. Tap on that and it changes to an SMS icon. When you want to send a SMS message, make sure the SMS icon appears there and just start typing. Note that you must have the mobile phone number for your friend already entered into their contact info. To go back to sending IMs, tap on the icon again to bring up the Y! icon.

Updates from your friends (Pulse)
In addition to IMs and SMS text messages, you can keep up with what your friends are doing on your favorite social networks. Tap on the Pulse icon to see a running list of updates from your friends. See the latest photos from your Flickr friends, get status updates from your Facebook contacts, or see what your Twitter buddies have to say. Different views let you look at all updates together, just status updates or just photo updates.

You can also update your own status on your social networks from oneConnect. When you’re in the Pulse area, tap the “My Status” button in the upper right corner. Enter a new status message and it gets sent out too all of your networks at once.

Yahoo! oneConnect is available for free from the Yahoo! Mobile website. To install it, click the “Get Yahoo! oneConnect” button on the page to access the oneConnect listing in the App Store on iTunes (or click here to launch it immediately in iTunes). It works on all versions of the iPhone.

Try it out and let us know what you think here on the blog or on the oneConnect Suggestion Board.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

But now, with a couple of features available in Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 Beta, you no longer have to sign off and drop off. You can have incoming IMs and voice calls forwarded to your mobile phone. Here’s how it works…

Above your Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 contact list you’ll notice two new buttons – an icon of a small mobile phone and a Yahoo! Voice button. Click on the mobile phone icon and select “Set Up Mobile Device”. A small window will appear where you can register your mobile phone with Yahoo! Messenger.

Once registered, you can turn on IM forwarding. After signing out of Yahoo! Messenger, you will still appear online to your friends but with an “I’m Mobile” status message. Friends can then IM you and the messages will be forwarded to your mobile phone as text messages (SMS). Reply to the SMS from your phone and your friend will receive it in Messenger. So even when you’re away from your computer, you can still receive and reply to IMs.

To enable IM forwarding whenever you sign out, select the “Always Sign in to [your mobile number]” from the mobile phone icon. If you prefer to enable it occasionally, go to the Messenger menu when you’re ready to sign out and choose “Sign in to [your mobile number]”. Find out more about IM forwarding

The same kind of forwarding can be set up for voice calls. If you’re signed out and a friend tries to call you via PC-to-PC or on your Phone In number, the call can be immediately forwarded to another phone you have (mobile or landline). A Phone Out account is required. When calls are forwarded to you, they are subject to the standard per minute rates of our Phone Out service.

To enable call forwarding, click the “Yahoo! Voice” button above your contact list and select “Set Up Call Forwarding”. Indicate which number you want your incoming calls forwarded to and you’re done. Once you set up call forwarding, it will even forward calls when you are signed into Yahoo! Messenger. So if you prefer to receive calls in Messenger when you’re signed in, just return to the button and select “Call Forwarding > Disabled”. Find out more about call forwarding

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Most mobile phone users use the mobile web version of Yahoo! Messenger by visiting http://m.yahoo.com through their phone’s web browser. But on select devices, like a Blackberry, a more robust, downloadable application is available that includes some key extras like the ability to notify you when new IMs come in, even if you’re doing something else on the phone. The Blackberry version also offers graphical emoticons, and the ever-popular Buzz feature.

If you have a Blackberry, there are a couple of ways to get Yahoo! Messenger. Visit the Yahoo! Messenger download page on the Blackberry site (scroll to the bottom and click the Download button), or on your Blackberry, select the Internet Browser icon on the homepage and navigate to http://www.blackberry.com/yahoodownload.

It’s free to download Yahoo! Messenger and use it on your Blackberry, but note that carrier airtime, usage fees and other taxes may apply. Check the details of your Blackberry’s data plan with your mobile provider. Yahoo! Messenger is available for the following Blackberry devices: BlackBerry® 7100, 7200, 7500, 7700, 8700 and 8800 series, BlackBerry® Pearl™, and BlackBerry® Curve™. Yahoo! Messenger is not available for Blackberry users on AT&T.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager