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

We’d like to invite you to participate in a quick poll so that we can better understand how regularly you are using the feature:

Looking forward to hear from you!

Yahoo! Messenger Team

Along with this update, we took the opportunity to add premium voice out to iPad.

At Yahoo! we are committed to deliver the best-in-class messaging experience. Download the latest version today and let us know what you think. Enjoy!

Yahoo! Messenger Team

The chat experience will be similar to what you are used to except that now you will be able to initiate conversations with your Facebook friends as well. For those who prefer to show your online presence only to your Yahoo! contacts, you can choose to sign out of Facebook Chat – You are in control of your experience!

To set up, simply login to Mobile Web Messenger  (http://m.yahoo.com/messenger) and click on the Facebook notification banner to link your Facebook & Yahoo! accounts. Upon successful authentication, you will be able to see your online Facebook friends in a separate tab. Click on any one of your Facebook friends and start chatting away!

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

Juliana Santarelli

Communications Mobile Product Manager

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

- Best IM Client for Windows | vote
- Best IM Client for Mac | vote
- Best IM Chat Rooms | vote

The winners are determined by you, the readers, so head over to About.com to vote for Yahoo! Messenger in the above categories. Voting begins today and runs through March 8.

Thanks to About.com readers for nominating us. We appreciate it!

Sherrine Tan
Yahoo! Messenger Team

For those of you who haven’t already done so, download the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger and experience high-quality, full screen video and voice calling today!

Sherrine Tan

Yahoo! Messenger Team

Email is great. It’s much faster than snail mail, and you usually get a response sooner than later. But, have you ever been writing an email wishing that you could have instant communication with your contact without picking up the phone? You can with Yahoo! Mail’s chat feature. Chat lets you and your contact exchange messages in “real time”, meaning “right now”, and all while using Yahoo! Mail and without having to download an instant messenger application. (And it’s free!)

Picture this. You have an urgent question regarding flight times for this evening. The only way you can reach your friend is through email. While typing your message, you notice that your friend is online. Instead of sending the email, you convert your message into chat, ask your question, and receive an immediate response. No worries!

Your contact must have a Yahoo! ID or a Windows Live™ Messenger ID and must be signed in to either Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, or another compatible instant messaging program.

So, let’s just repeat the highlights and get you chatting!

• Chat lets you communicate with your contacts in real time so that you receive instant replies.
• Use Yahoo! Mail chat without downloading additional software.
• Convert an email message or text message in progress to a chat message—and vice versa.
• Use chat to communicate with all of your Yahoo! and Windows Live contacts. All they need is to sign into Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, or another instant messaging program.

Staying connected has never been this easy!

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

We, at Yahoo! Messenger, thought we might make this Easter a bit special for you all. Today, we are letting you on to a couple of hidden or “Easter egg” features within Yahoo! Messenger:

(1). List of Hidden Emoticons – use them to surprise your friends

(2). Hold down the windows key and press Y to bring up Messenger no matter what window you’re in.

We hope you will enjoy these hidden features as much as you have enjoyed using Yahoo! Messenger.

Happy Easter!

Thyaga Vasudevan
Product Manager