Yahoo Turns Social With Updated Messenger 9 Beta
Having tried out with a special Vista version last December, which apparently did not go over well, but with a new beta version of Yahoo Messenger 9.0 beta software released last Thursday, adopts a customizable user’s option for reconstructing networks of friends and contacts they have built elsewhere, and appearance that complements any decor, including Windows XP.
With the latest release, Yahoo has enhanced Yahoo Messenger 9 attributes like contact lists, status messages, and has made it a great deal easier to import contacts from outside programs and services.
The fresh beta of Yahoo Messenge{mosimage}r 9 can help user invite contacts on AOL, Google’s Gmail and Orkut, Microsoft’s Hotmail, MySpace, and other online services to connect through the Yahoo service. Version 9 also adds a special group of all people in your Yahoo address book, helping to connect with contacts users may have stored elsewhere within Yahoo itself.
A New Contact List Format Button is another addition to the Messenger 9.0 beta with two views available for a user’s contact list — detailed and compact. Also, for Vista users, voice in chat rooms has been enabled. The chat room verification process has also been changed; users can now enter the Captcha code right in the chat room window instead of having to go off to another page.
“Yahoo! Updates” lets users to stay updated with what their friends are up to. It means, when a user’s friend buzzes a preferred news story or changes their Avatar, a “Yahoo! Update” is displayed next to that friend in their contact list (with more details in their contact card).
“We will add more types of updates in the future,” said product manager Sarah Bacon in a blog posting about the new beta.
Additionally, Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 beta now also boasts games, something that the company had not included in previous updates. Fans would be glad to welcome games like Checkers, Pool, Toki Toki Boom, etc.
Games are to be found under the new “Activities” button. Your friends must have the latest version of the 9.0 beta software or the earlier finished version of Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 to play games together.
Message warning pop-ups have also been added in the latest update so that if you switch to a different program window, your incoming messages will appear in the lower right hand corner of your screen.
Finally, Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 offers bigger emoticons. In addition, when a new message comes in to the background window, a small notification will pop up from the lower right corner of the user’s screen with the beginning text of the IM your friend just sent.
Yahoo Messenger 9 is designed for use on Windows XP, in contrast to the more obviously named Yahoo Messenger for Vista. The final version of the Yahoo Messenger 9 is due in the third quarter, Yahoo said. The Mac equivalent is scheduled to be released by the end of the year.
Yahoo also says along with new features it has worked hard to fix bugs, improve the software’s stability, and has made the Messenger faster when executing commands.
For a complete list of Yahoo Messenger 9.0 beta features check with Yahoo here.
Users can download the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 beta here.