Yahoo on Monday is expected to launch a makeover of its popular instant-messaging software, just days after similar moves by rivals America Online and Microsoft.
Called "The All New Yahoo Messenger," the upgrade is one of the software's most dramatic makeovers to date. Cosmetically, the service will have a new look and feel that focuses more on graphics and animation, the company said. The service also has folded in features pulled from other areas of Yahoo's Web site, such as photo sharing, the address book, user-to-user video games, Internet radio from its Launch subsidiary, and online search results. "Yahoo Messenger is a hub for communications services," Lisa Pollock Mann, Yahoo Messenger's senior director, said in an interview Friday. "It's important that those services are core and relevant."
The software looks similar to MSN Messenger in its ability to display digital photos or play a round of checkers in the messenger chat window, for instance. However, Yahoo added the option of displaying avatars, which are cartoon images that people can customize with different appearances, outfits and backgrounds to reflect their moods. Avatars have been popular in Asia, but have yet to gain broad adoption in the United States. Yahoo Messenger also expanded familiar perks. The company increased its arsenal of animated "smiley" emoticons, adding 13 new faces to its existing 35 choices. The service also still offers PC voice calling, PC-to-mobile phone text messaging, a Web cam and news updates.
News source: C|Net News.com
Called "The All New Yahoo Messenger," the upgrade is one of the software's most dramatic makeovers to date. Cosmetically, the service will have a new look and feel that focuses more on graphics and animation, the company said. The service also has folded in features pulled from other areas of Yahoo's Web site, such as photo sharing, the address book, user-to-user video games, Internet radio from its Launch subsidiary, and online search results. "Yahoo Messenger is a hub for communications services," Lisa Pollock Mann, Yahoo Messenger's senior director, said in an interview Friday. "It's important that those services are core and relevant."
The software looks similar to MSN Messenger in its ability to display digital photos or play a round of checkers in the messenger chat window, for instance. However, Yahoo added the option of displaying avatars, which are cartoon images that people can customize with different appearances, outfits and backgrounds to reflect their moods. Avatars have been popular in Asia, but have yet to gain broad adoption in the United States. Yahoo Messenger also expanded familiar perks. The company increased its arsenal of animated "smiley" emoticons, adding 13 new faces to its existing 35 choices. The service also still offers PC voice calling, PC-to-mobile phone text messaging, a Web cam and news updates.
News source: C|Net News.com
Beyond Divinity is already available Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and will soon be available in other territories including the Benelux,Scandinavia,Portugal, France, Australia, Poland, the Czech republic, the Russian speaking territories, China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Beyond Divinity is being localized in French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Czech and Polish. Other languages and territories may soon be announced.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?act=...8&t=161183&st=0
btw its a great release!
..or maybe even sorting out webcams / file transfers between users sitting behind NAT, firewalls, or home routers (which is a lot of people these days)
pd: they copy the options of invisible mode of ICQ
"Stealth Settings
Make yourself appear online to some and offline to others on your Messenger list."
the new stealth feature rocks.
the skins are OK.
I hope the final uses less ram...
Finally though a good looking program. I realize that's not always the most important factor in a program, but the old one was severely dated. I just want to know why they have copied the color scheme of MSN for the most part.
I agree with another poster that they could have imrpoved the dated icon as well. Maybe since its beta that will be an improvement coming soon. I have always thought the IMevironments were a cool part of Y! so perhaps with the addition of avitars they will make more of that feature.
I might forgo trillian for these updates since for one thing it can be easier to tell which service you are talking in by the different windows, unlike trillian where the only different is usually just the little icon in the corner.
At least the closest I can get to the real me is WAAAYYY cooler looking. I guess they need to add slightly tubby bodies to those options as well, heh
This new IM is for Windows clients only...
They lag so behind on their unix development. *sigh*
msn messenger on linux?
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