Currently, we manage our own end to end services that enable users to call from Yahoo! Messenger to regular or mobile phones around the world for as low as 1¢ a minute. Upon integration, Jajah will power these services and we will leverage their VoIP network for delivering Phone Out and In services.
Rest assured that our voice services will remain the same and as a user, you will not notice any change. We are committed to achieving the highest possible call quality and ease of use. This change does not affect our free PC to PC calls; these will continue to be handled by Yahoo! Messenger (and still be free!).
We’ll keep you posted here on the blog about any additional voice news. For more information on Yahoo! Messenger’s premium voice services, please visit http://voice.yahoo.com.
We know you’ve waited a long time for this… The new version of Yahoo! Messenger for Mac Beta now has voice calling!
With this new version, you can make free PC-to-PC calls or sign up for a Phone Out account to make calls from your Mac to regular or mobile phones worldwide for as low as 1¢ a minute (see rates). And if you want friends to be able to call you on your Mac from any phone, sign up for a Phone In account and choose a number.
Now that our Mac version has voice, users can also enjoy two other handy features: free voicemail and call forwarding. If you’re away from your Mac or signed out of Yahoo! Messenger, friends can leave you a voicemail which is then delivered as an email attachment to an address of your choice.
If you want to make sure you don’t miss any calls, use the call forwarding feature to immediately send incoming calls to any regular or mobile phone number. Note that you do need a Phone Out account to use call forwarding.
There is also a new Voice & Calls section in the preferences menu. From there you can set what email address should receive your voicemails, what number your calls should get forwarded to, and handy things like whether or not you want iTunes to pause when a call comes in.
You’ll find the voice features in a new “Voice & SMS” button in your IM window. From there you can start a call, or send a free SMS (text) message to a friend’s mobile phone (note that your friend may be charged for receiving your SMS message depending on their mobile phone data plan).
The main contact list window also has a button near the bottom that opens up a dial pad. This is handy if you have a number you need to call that’s not associated with a contact.
Check out this short screencast to see how the new voice features work:
If you’re curious about the voice features but aren’t ready to sign up for a Phone Out account (or don’t have a friend you can call for free on PC-to-PC), try the “Make a free test call” button in the Voice preferences menu. During the free call you can record and playback your voice to check out the quality.
We really want your feedback on this new version, so after you’ve had some time to try it, please visit our feedback page to let us know what you like and don’t like.
Soundtrack is one of my favorite “hidden” features in Yahoo! Messenger. While you’re on a voice call, you can choose a music file from your hard drive to play during your call. I use it all the time to play music for myself and a friend while we talk.
To use the Soundtrack feature in Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 or 9.0, first place a call to a friend. You can either call another Yahoo! Messenger friend for free on a PC-to-PC call, or call a friend’s mobile or other number using PC-to-phone. Once your friend answers and you start talking, click the sound icon, then click the music note icon. This will open a window that lets you select a MP3 file from your hard drive.
Once you’ve loaded the MP3 file into your call, it will play in the background for both you and your friend to hear. If it’s too loud, click the music note icon to adjust the volume. This is handy if you just want your music to play in the background softly during the call (or have some karaoke fun). The menu also allows you to forward or reverse to a specific point in the song.
I’ve used the Soundtrack feature for a few different things – introducing a friend to a new song, singing along to a track to entertain a friend, or even to listen to a MP3 podcast together. Try adding a soundtrack to your next call in Yahoo! Messenger.
The New York Times recently had an interesting article about software for recording internet phone calls. Recording calls can be handy if you’re using your computer to make business calls, or there’s just a memorable conversation you want to archive (like my nephew’s first phone call with me when he was 2).
The article mentioned a couple of programs that work with Yahoo! Messenger – Solicall and HotRecorder. Solicall is a call enhancement program with recording options, while HotRecorder offers recording and archiving capabilities. I took HotRecorder for a test drive to see how it worked.
Download and installation for HotRecorder was quick and easy. I did notice it was set with Skype as the default program for recording calls from, and I couldn’t figure out right away how to change that to Yahoo! Messenger. But a quick search of their online help set me straight – right click on the HotRecorder icon in the system tray, select “Activate HotRecorder for…” and then choose Yahoo! Messenger. If you don’t see Yahoo! Messenger in the list initially, make sure it’s running on your computer.
I then placed a call in Yahoo! Messenger. I was hoping that HotRecorder would detect that a call was taking place and start recording on its own, but it didn’t. However the HotRecorder window is small and can sit alongside your Messenger call window, so it’s easy to just click the record button in the window to start. A timer appeared in the HotRecorder window to let me know the duration (note that with the free version, your maximum recording time is 2 minutes). Once my call ended, I clicked the stop button. The HotRecorder window changed, showing me the call duration and recording file size (a :27 conversation was 7 KB), and also provided data fields I could fill in for the filename, who the call was with and keywords. Then I clicked Save, a brief encoding process took place and I was returned to the original home screen.
HotRecorder also has a “Player” tab that allows you to access your saved conversations from that session (you can access recording from past sessions by opening them off your hard drive). You can search for conversations (by person, date or keyword), replay them, and even send a recording to a friend. When you send to a friend, it attaches the recording in an .ELP file format to an email. Your friend will then need to download and install HotRecorder on their own computer to listen to the .ELP file.
HotRecorder also offers some “Emotisounds” you can play on your call like “Booing”, “Baby’s Cry” and “Cheer” (15 in total). The good news is they’re different from the Soundboard sound effects offered in Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 and 9.0 so between the two, you can add a lot of fun to your calls.
HotRecorder is free if you only need to record calls that are 2 minutes or less; the premium version is $14.95. I found it very handy for recording both PC-to-PC and PC-to-phone calls from Yahoo! Messenger.
If you make PC-to-Phone calls on Yahoo! Messenger, you’ll love the two new features we’ve added to the Yahoo! Voice website.
A frequent request from our voice users is a complete call history. Good news! Now you can view your entire PC-to-Phone call history on the Yahoo! Voice website. Be sure you’re signed in, then click the “My Call History” link near the top of the page. You can view your calls by month in a list showing all calls, or in lists of just outgoing or incoming calls.
Each call history includes the date and time the call was made, phone number, location, duration of the call, price per minute and total charges. The call history automatically displays your fifty most recent calls; click the page numbers near the top to go further back in your history.
The call history on the Yahoo! Voice site only includes PC-to-Phone calls made through a Phone Out account. To view recent call history for your last three hundred calls, including free PC-to-PC calls, click on the “Contacts” menu in Yahoo! Messenger and select “Call History”.
We also made the auto-recharge option for your Phone Out account more customizable. In the past, the Auto-recharge amount would automatically default to the last amount for the Phone Out purchase that you made. But now you can specify either $10 or $25 as your auto-recharge option. Just visit the Yahoo! Voice site, be sure you’re signed in, then click on the “My Services” link near the top of the page.
Speaking of Yahoo! Voice, we have a 2nd birthday coming up!
In December 2005, we began offering premium voice services in the Windows version of our product. You can use Yahoo! Voice services to make free PC-to-PC calls to other Messenger contacts, or purchase a Phone Out account to call your friends’ mobile or regular phones from Messenger for as low as 1¢ a minute. We also offer Phone In accounts, allowing you to purchase a phone number which you can use to receive calls right in Yahoo! Messenger. With the recent release of Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 Beta, call forwarding was also introduced, allowing you to forward incoming calls to your Yahoo! Messenger to another phone number, even if you’re signed out.
As you may have seen in the news today, Yahoo! Messenger is partnering with Jajah to power the management of our premium voice (Phone Out and Phone In) services.
Once you’ve loaded the MP3 file into your call, it will play in the background for both you and your friend to hear. If it’s too loud, click the music note icon to adjust the volume. This is handy if you just want your music to play in the background softly during the call (or have some karaoke fun). The menu also allows you to forward or reverse to a specific point in the song.
Speaking of Yahoo! Voice, we have a 2nd birthday coming up!