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Loading ...Yahoo Messenger cruises into Web 2.0 territory
By Joaquim P. Menezes -
There’s an entire slew of Instant Messaging tools out there, so what’s the big deal about an upgrade to an existing service – and a beta version at that.
The significance of Yahoo Social Messenger 9.0 beta – which launches today – isn’t just in its simpler and slicker user interface or cool new features.
9.0, it seems, represents Yahoo’s strenuous efforts to find its groove in social networking, something the company hasn’t been able to do very successfully so far.
Will Yahoo Messenger 9.0 provide a decisive answer to the likes of MySpace and Facebook.
Yahoo certainly hopes that will be the case, and in redesigning the application has focused on beefing up its social networking features.
For instance, Messenger 9.0 makes it very easy to initiate contact with friends and associates via various channels: just place your cursor on a contact on your list, and options for contacting them are displayed.
A single click then allows you to send a text message to IM and more. Clicking on the area next to the name displays the person’s entire contact card.
The service also adds a new group to the list – all of the Yahoo address book contacts. From this list, one is able to launch a call, email or text message a contact – or click Edit to view their full listing.
For those who have a lot of contacts, the Search bar on top helps one locate a contact by typing a contact’s name and phone number in the bar to quickly locate them.
The updated photo feature in Yahoo Messenger 9.0 offers better integration with Flickr.com – Yahoo’s photo sharing Web site.
One 9.0 feature being heavily promoted by Yahoo is the “inline media player.”
If you paste a link from a popular video site – such as YouTube or Yahoo Video – in the IM window allows you to watch the video within your IM window, instead of visiting a separate Web site (you would need to have copied the link first, so chances are you will visit the video Web site anyway).
The new “Forward” feature is another cool capability. It allows you to stay connected with contacts even when you’re offline. Before signing out, you can click a Forward button to get IMs forwarded to your mobile phone as text messages.
Also, if you have a Yahoo Messenger phone in number, you can have your incoming calls forwarded to another number – like your mobile or home phone.
Some of these features are likely to increase the use Yahoo Messenger in an enterprise context.
Of course, scores of the 94 million Yahoo Messenger users already use the tool at work – something they’ve been able to do more securely since both IBM Lotus and Microsoft introduced a federation between their EIM systems and some of the public IM networks – including Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
