We’re excited to introduce to you the Messenger Help Community!  In this new extension of Yahoo! Help, you’ll find a friendly environment where you can talk to real people like yourself, as well as members of the Yahoo! staff (yes, we’re real too). Whether you want to discuss features, seek help with an issue, or save someone’s day by sharing your wisdom and experience, there are a variety of discussion forums available to you. Come check it out!

While you visit, there are some features we’d like to bring to your attention:

Don’t miss out!
You can keep up to date with discussions by subscribing to them. Go to “My Subscriptions” and sign up to receive email notifications when posts are made to topics and forums that you’ve subscribed to. Have topics of your own? You can easily track these through “My Topics” and see what others are saying about your ideas and queries.

Boost your community status!
It’s easy to increase your reputation score in the community; just participate in a discussion to earn a variety of point awards. You’ll gain the most points when you successfully help others. A topic reply is good, a helpful reply even better, and a reply picked as a solution by the topic owner…the best.

Stay tuned…
These new community forums have only been open for a few weeks and already there are all sorts of great conversations going on.  We’re continually seeking ways to improve the features of the Help Community, so watch for updates and be sure to let us know what you think in our feedback forums.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you–come join the conversation!

Yahoo! Messenger Team

To read more about the new Y! Messenger Romanian version in Romanian click here.
[Clic aici pentru a citi mai multe despre Y! Messenger in limba Română]

Make sure to download the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger to enjoy all of its fantastic new features: http://messenger.yahoo.com

Yahoo! Messenger Team

For those heavy texters out there, we are excited to introduce Hub, a fast and easy-to-use mobile messaging app that allows you to send text messages and have group conversations for free. Hub allows you to easily add participants to any conversation thread so it’s easy to switch from private messaging to a group conversation. Whether it is just keeping up with a close group of friends or making spontaneous plans, you no longer have to deal with scattered messages.

What’s more, Hub allows you to send messages to anyone without incurring any text messaging fees. Yes, you heard us right. There are no text messaging fees – messages are sent over WIFI or using your data connection – and Hub is device agnostic, which means you can communicate with anyone on any mobile device as long as you have their mobile phone numbers. Your friends are not required to download the app in order to reply to your messages although they are strongly encouraged to do so in order to enjoy the full feature set!

Key features of Hub include:

• Group messaging: Enjoy group conversations with several friends at once
• Local and international SMS messages: Send text messages to other Hub users or any mobile phone for free†
• Privacy: Easily view and add participants to any conversation thread
• Message any phone: Your friends can reply with any SMS enabled mobile phone
• Instant notifications: Get push notifications for incoming messages so you never have to miss a conversation

Hub is currently in beta and is available for download on the Android Marketplace. We are extremely excited about this release and can’t wait for you to get started. Try Hub today and let us know what you think!

Note: Hub requires Android OS 2.1+ and is currently available only to users with a US SIM card and a text plan.

†This feature is currently available when sending to numbers in Canada, Indonesia, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, United States and Vietnam. SMS recipients may be charged by their carriers.

Yahoo! Messenger Team

Tabbed IMs – One of the most highly sought after features! We heard you loud and clear that being able to effectively organize and manage your conversations is important. No more clutter or juggling – with tabbed IMs, you get to chat with all your friends from one easy and convenient window..

Improved Spam Management – We hate spam as much as you do, and our battle against it is an ongoing one. If you have been receiving invitations from random strangers, you can now ignore multiple add requests with a single click.

New Social Games – Level up on how you are keeping in touch with your friends and family. With over 70 exciting games such as Backyard Monsters, Township and ourWorld, Yahoo! Messenger lets you chat and play games with friends at the same time! Get your friends involved by sharing your game activities and play-status so that friends can join your game and you can join theirs.

Easy Access to Recent Contacts – You may have over a hundred Messenger friends, but most of us chat with only a handful – and usually the same handful – on a regular basis. Your recent contacts now appear at the top of your contact list, so it’s quick and easy to reach out to your regular IM friends.

Smart Archiving – Looking up an old IM conversation has never been easier. Your chat history is now categorized by friends, with your most recent conversations showing up first. What’s more, your IM conversations can be retrieved from any PC or web browser where you have signed in to Yahoo! Messenger.

Snap and Share – Add more color to your chat conversations! In addition to photos, you can now take a quick snap shot of your computer screen and easily share it with your friends.

Quick Access to All Emoticons – Yahoo! Messenger has always had some hidden emoticons that weren’t available on the emoticon menu, which meant you had to memorize their shortcuts. Now you no longer have to rack your brain to remember the shortcut for the monkey emoticon (it’s, for those keeping score). The emoticon menu gives you quick access to all the emoticons, and even remembers the ones you use most frequently!

Now in Romanian too – Finally, we value all our users around the world and try as much as we can to deliver a truly local experience. With this new release, millions of users in Romania will now be able to use Yahoo! Messenger in Romanian by selecting it from the language box on the sign-in page!

Get the latest Yahoo! Messenger today at http://messenger.yahoo.com, we hope you’ll enjoy the new version as much as we do!

As with any new release, we want to hear all about your experience — what’s working well for you and what’s not. Try it today and let us know what you think through the “Send Feedback” link on the Help menu.

Yahoo! Messenger Team

***UPDATE***

It’s come to our attention from the Yahoo! Messenger Community that hackers are intentionally exploiting a newly-discovered security vulnerability affecting Messenger for Windows. At Yahoo!, we take security very seriously and we greatly appreciate those who flagged this to us. We are actively working to completely resolve this issue.  In the interim, we have pushed a fix that will protect users against this vulnerability. Messenger users need to log out of Messenger and then back-in for the fix to take effect.

We are committed towards improving the performance of our services and your continued patience is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Yahoo! Messenger Team

We are committed towards improving the performance of our services and your continued patience is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Yahoo! Messenger Team

Yahoo! Messenger Team

For those who aren’t already aware, here are some exciting features we would like to call out.

FREE VOICE & VIDEO CALLING: Why limit yourself to just IMs? Yahoo! Messenger for Android now supports FREE voice and video calling, so you can feel like you are right there as you connect with your friends and family, wherever they may be in the world. To activate this functionality, be sure to install the Yahoo! Messenger Voice & Video Add-on in addition to the Yahoo! Messenger App for Android.

FACEBOOK CHAT INTEGRATION: We understand your friends and family are everywhere and connecting with them should be simple and easy. With that in mind, we worked on integrating Facebook Chat within Messenger so that you can send and receive messages from your Facebook friends in real-time while you are on the go.

STAY SIGNED IN: Stay signed in to your chats on your desktop PC computer and Android mobile phone at the same time. You get notified about new messages where you are active which means you never have to miss a conversation.

We hope you will enjoy these new features as much as we do. Try them out and let us know what you think!

Yahoo! Messenger Team

Check out the Yahoo! Messenger Faceoff Contest on our Facebook fan page.  Join the fun by simply submitting a photo of yourself imitating your favorite emoticon. Then encourage friends and family to vote for your submission by “liking” your photo in the Faceoff gallery or to submit their own photos if they think they can do better!  After two rounds of voting, the winner with the most “likes” will have their face turned into a brand new emoticon for the world to use.

Everyone knows Yahoo! Messenger is bursting with fun, so it’s no surprise we grew our Yahoo! Messenger Facebook fan base from 120K to 520K in just five months! The page includes updates on product features, delightful polls, interesting Messenger trivia and lots of fan interaction.  It’s a great way for Yahoo! Messenger to connect with and delight loyal fans across the globe.

Go ahead – show the world your best smiley! If you’re too shy to submit a photo, visit the Faceoff gallery to vote for your favorites and support your friends. Which emotion are YOU?

Yahoo! Messenger Team

What’s cooler is that you can also chat with your Facebook friends when you are mobile. For users who are already using the latest Yahoo! Messenger Beta on your PC, you can continue chatting with Facebook friends once you log out of your desktop client. You can send and receive messages from your Facebook friends in real-time via SMS.

Here’s how you can set it up on your mobile device.

· Download the lastest Yahoo! Messenger Beta for PC
· Link your Facebook account
· Register your mobile device

Now when you log out of your desktop Messenger, you will be automatically logged into your mobile device. Any messages sent by your Facebook friends will be forwarded to your mobile device and appear in your phone’s SMS inbox. Reply to the SMS message, and your message will be sent back to your Facebook friends. It’s that simple.

Enjoy the Facebook Chat experience on your mobile device and let us know what you think!

Nitu Choudhary

Technical Yahoo!