New & improved search in Yahoo! Messenger Help
March 23, 2007 on 1:41 pm | In Features | 27 Comments
I know many of us don’t like help pages on websites because sometimes you can’t find what you’re looking for. Just yesterday, “jon” left a blog comment saying “…i wish messenger didn’t default to giving your entire first and last name to your contact”. I started responding to jon’s comment to let him know how to fix that, and wanted to include a link to a relevant help page.
So I went to Yahoo! Messenger Help for version 8 and was surprised to see a search box. We used to have one but Greg, our customer care zealot, was so appalled by the poor search results that he ripped it out several months ago. But now it was back so perhaps Greg had found a better solution…
I dove right in and entered “full name” into the search box, hoping to find a help article for jon. The search was fast and below the results for help articles were more results for matching questions and answers from the Messenger category on Yahoo! Answers. I found a good link to include in my comment back to jon about how to modify your Messenger contact details so that your full name is not displayed or passed onto friends that add you.
I immediately IM’d Greg and an intellectual exchange took place (gotta love IM archive):
Sarah B: Dude, new search in Help??
Greg C.: wow, i just pushed it like a second ago
Sarah B.: Is that a new search engine in help?
Greg C.: u r good!!!!
Sarah B.: It rocks!!!
So, if you’ve been skeptical about using Yahoo! Messenger Help, give it another try. With a single search you can get results for articles in Help as well as Yahoo! Answers. It just launched, so Greg is still in the process of optimizing it, but the more you use it, the better it can become. Please bang away on it and let us know how it worked for you by leaving a comment here on the blog.
Yahoo! Messenger 8 help: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/messenger/messenger8/index.html
Sarah Bacon
Product Manager
“Why is Yahoo! Chat Entry Slow?”:
http://vsp.help.yahoo.com/index.html?lang=en&query=why+is+yahoo%21+chat+entry+slow&Search=Search
No Yahoo! Answer, but I think a user supplied answer summarises it nicely:
“The simple awnser is -> Due to the most recent update, Yahoo! Inc, has ****** up once again.”
and
“cause it sucks”
and
“cuz y tuneel and all the bot get suck the chat yahoo…….”
Comment by Sean — March 23, 2007 #
Sarah,
Unfortunately it doesn’t answer any of these questions either:
“Why is there no Voice Chat in Vista”
“Why do I see other users statuses”
“Why do I see bots”
“Why are there visual defect in the user list”
“Why does the chat screen load behind other windows and not appear on the taskbar”
All those have only been problems since before Christmas, maybe thats why there are no answers yet.
Comment by Sean — March 23, 2007 #
Will this work on the Mac version?
Alex
Comment by Alex Rodriguez — March 23, 2007 #
the help menu is a joke,,,when you ask something like sean said…. you get nothing. Why dont you tell us Sarah when are you fixing the chat rooms.
When you complain you get simple form letter use ignor..ec etc.. How about some real answers… better yet real action instead of simple little thing,,,like improved Messanger Help Menu…LMAO
Comment by den — March 23, 2007 #
LMAO…Alex, only about 10%-20% of the PC user’s use macs..it’ll be a while till they come up with a mac version of messenger. Window’s Vista just came out.. (Windows is a higher priority than mac), and the Vista version (of messenger) wont come out till later this Summer. So, it’ll definately be a while till they come out with the mac version.
Comment by Kevin — March 23, 2007 #
”HI ! I’m married have 2/3 kids and wonder full husband” it is the most common profile information in Yahoo!funny
Comment by DuRaNtO — March 23, 2007 #
yes it will probably work on the mac version because it’s a website
Comment by Lucky — March 24, 2007 #
What can I do to get messanger to stop coming on whenever the system is rebooted. I would like to have to log in and use a password than having anyone else using this machine to reboot and have my messanger come on. This problem needs to be fixed–and yes I have checked the little box indicating that messanger needs a password but it doesn’t effect the settings.
Comment by david kopp — March 24, 2007 #
Hey David,
To prevent messenger from opening when you boot your computer, you have to:
1) Sign on to messenger,
2) At the top go to Messenger > Preferences
3) With the General tab selected on the left, uncheck “Automatically start Yahoo! Messenger”
Hope it helps!
Comment by Jon — March 24, 2007 #
This tool works fine..
Comment by Kai — March 24, 2007 #
Pls tell me how and why I cannot add picture to profile in Messenger. HELP sue
Comment by matchandchat — March 24, 2007 #
Trouble – over 2 months cannot upload photo to my profile in Messenger and Cannot get into Yazak at all.
Comment by Sue — March 24, 2007 #
I couldnt assess my yahoo messenger id & password is correct.
Comment by nithu — March 25, 2007 #
The next thing you should work on is sending and receiving emails from inside Yahoo! messenger. Just like there is a ADDRESS BOOK tab at the top of messenger, there should be an email tab. I don’t think it will be a big tough deal to include this but it will be hugely important feature. This is a good idea (I already gave this more than a month ago). Don’t forget to send me €€€€€ for the advice. hehe.
P.S.: Of course getting rid of bots is the first and foremost priority!
Comment by user — March 25, 2007 #
who gives a toss google is the number 1 you made a massive mistake years ago when google tried selling up to you and you declined through sheer greed now long they make yahoo search seem pathetic and have real inovations such as the voip for FREE i might add you are playing catchup like for instance the send pms in email google has had this in gtalk for over a year lmao yahoo is falling apart open a topic for spam are you blind????? did you not see the reponces jesus christ. ( this comment ill be deleted) no doubt all you can do is sweep the real issues facing yahoo chat general users under the carpet well your chat service is at breaking point with the spam you are loosing thousands and thousands of users to the likes of paltalk keep it up yahoo i will continue to amuse myself with your demise!
Comment by Yep — March 26, 2007 #
Why don’t you try to fix all the problems that affect yahoo messenger and mainly chat? If you have planned to close yahoo chat please tell clearly. And close it!
If not…. Consider to re-put the chat option on european versions!! (of course, first fix servers!)
Comment by Gius — March 26, 2007 #
SPAM needs adressing not the frigin yahoo help problem NO ONE CAN GET INTO CHAT clear enough?
Comment by LOL — March 26, 2007 #
What a shame Yahoo! can delete my posts! Is this what makes Yahoo! above the rest deleting posts and ignoring problems?
Lets answer the simple question and pretend we didn’t see those chat related ones.
Comment by polar — March 26, 2007 #
yup they deleted my post as well………. you think wit post they leave alone…they figure tht they need to fix chat….but nooooooooooooooooooo
Comment by den — March 26, 2007 #
The spam on Yahoo! is similar to commercials on television, if we don’t have commercials on T.V we don’t have T.V., so what would happen to Yahoo! without spam? The thing I’m not getting is what do the iggy bots and booters have to do with Yahoo! other than ruin it and why isn’t Yahoo! doing anything about them?
Comment by polar — March 27, 2007 #
I’m not holding my breath but I think as Yahoo! Chatter we all deserve an explaination of some sort.
Comment by polar — March 27, 2007 #
I cannnot add my photo in avator.why?
Comment by Cindy — March 27, 2007 #
So Sarah, when will a final release of the Mac version be available? The “beta” has been out for a year or so.
Alex
Comment by Alex Rodriguez — March 27, 2007 #
Speaking of search: do tell me please, with Yahoo! being a big search focused company, why on EARTH is there no search function for the archive?!
Thanks & good luck,
David
Comment by Gogu Duru — March 30, 2007 #
hi….i couldnt access my yahoo id& password.when am loging in to messenger a new window opening autometically.i hav useful ids in my mesenger.so plz any one can help me..how i can access my yahoo messenger.
Comment by bharath kumar — April 2, 2007 #
Hello, i have a problem with webcam …it doesnt work for any yahoo messenger ..with msn works perfect .Can someone give me some solutions? I have no firewall thx
Comment by Adina — June 8, 2008 #
can anyone help me plz?
my yahoo messenger doesnt work properly.
first time i install it, it works good and when i click on ym icon it runs.
but one time it shows me an error and the program were closed.
after that time my yahoo messenger doesnt work properly.
when i click on ym icon the progam doesnt open.
but in task manager, processes tab, yahoo messenger is runnig!!!!
plz help me
what am i do???
thnx
Comment by Marzi — May 28, 2009 #