With this in mind, we have decided to discontinue several Yahoo! product features. This will enable us to refocus our efforts on modernizing our core Yahoo! products experiences and of course, create new ones. You can find more details below, including how the closures will work.

Yahoo! Messenger Public Chat Rooms
The Yahoo! Messenger Public Chat Rooms will close down on December 14, 2012.

Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox
As of December 14, 2012, Pingbox will no longer be available on Yahoo! Messenger. If you’ve installed Pingbox on your blog or social networks, please click here to learn how to uninstall it.

Yahoo! Messenger interoperability with Microsoft Windows Live Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger will no longer be interoperable with Microsoft Windows Live Messenger as of December 14, 2012. Microsoft buddies will still appear on your Messenger contact list, but they will be greyed out, and if you try to send instant messages to them, the messages will not be delivered.

Yahoo! Voice Phone In and Phone Out feature
Effective January 30, 2013, we will no longer offer Yahoo! Voice Phone In and Phone Out capabilities, our co-branded landline and mobile phone service from Jajah. As of today, users can no longer add new funds to their accounts, and active users who currently have a balance in their accounts will receive emailed instructions in December from Jajah on how to request a refund. You can find more information on how to ask for a refund here, and you can contact Jajah with any questions at yahoovoice@jajah.com. Free Messenger-to-Messenger calls will still be offered through Yahoo! Messenger.

Thank you to everyone who have used these features. We plan to keep innovating and building great Yahoo! products that will delight our users in the years to come.

Download the updated version of Yahoo! Messenger today. As always, your feedback is valuable to us and we would love to hear what you think.

Yahoo! Messenger Team

The ‘Add Location’ button in the Status Message view lets you add your general location to all status updates. You can also add a specific place, like a restaurant or park. Unable to find a place or local business from our suggested listings? Not to worry, because you will have the ability to manually enter a place or local business, which will be registered as a new location in our directory and can be used by other users on Yahoo! Messenger.

Please note that adding a location to your status message is completely optional and will only be enabled if your Android phone allows us to detect your location via GPS satellites or WiFi and mobile networks. Once you declare your location, all your buddies will see where you are so you never have to miss them again when you are in the same neighborhood. It will be fun, give it a try today!

Yahoo! Messenger Team

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’re excited to introduce to you the *UPDATED* Messenger Help Community!  In this new extension of Yahoo! Help, you’ll find a friendly environment where you can talk to real people like yourself, as well as members of the Yahoo! staff (yes, we’re real too). Whether you want to discuss features, seek help with an issue, or save someone’s day by sharing your wisdom and experience, there are a variety of discussion forums available to you. Come check it out!

While you visit, there are some features we’d like to bring to your attention:

Don’t miss out!
You can keep up to date with discussions by subscribing to them. Go to “My Subscriptions” and sign up to receive email notifications when posts are made to topics and forums that you’ve subscribed to. Have topics of your own? You can easily track these through “My Topics” and see what others are saying about your ideas and queries.

Boost your community status!
It’s easy to increase your reputation score in the community; just participate in a discussion to earn a variety of point awards. You’ll gain the most points when you successfully help others. A topic reply is good, a helpful reply even better, and a reply picked as a solution by the topic owner…the best.

Stay tuned…
These new community forums have only been open for a few weeks and already there are all sorts of great conversations going on.  We’re continually seeking ways to improve the features of the Help Community, so watch for updates and be sure to let us know what you think in our feedback forums.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you–come join the conversation!

Yahoo! Messenger Team

To read more about the new Y! Messenger Romanian version in Romanian click here.
[Clic aici pentru a citi mai multe despre Y! Messenger in limba Română]

Make sure to download the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger to enjoy all of its fantastic new features: http://messenger.yahoo.com

Yahoo! Messenger Team

Now when you’re on your iPhone, your Windows Live friends will be able to see when you’re online, and send and receive messages from them. You can also add new Windows Live friends right from the app.

In addition to supporting Windows Live conversations, we also added more languages in a prior release. Those of you who speak French, German, Italian, and Spanish can enjoy Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone in your native tongue.

If your iPhone is set to one of those four languages, Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone will detect that automatically and load the same language.

To download the new version, tap the App Store icon on your iPhone and search for Yahoo! Messenger (you may also see an update alert on your App Store icon). Or click here to download it through iTunes.

We hope you enjoy this latest version. If you have any technical issues with Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone, please send us feedback by tapping on “Settings”, then scrolling down and tapping on “Report Problem”.

Thyaga Vasudevan
Product Manager

Then there are those friends that just don’t know how to really say goodbye. You think the conversation is over and “ping!”, a new message comes in. How do you get them to say goodbye?

Thankfully Yahoo! Messenger has a few ways for you to get your message across, in the most humorous way of course.

We’ve got a set of Goodbye audibles that let you impersonate a number of silly characters who all have their own excuse for why they need to skedaddle. “Gotta go..my meds are kicking in!” says one nervous looking fellow. A pony-tailed woman with a choke dollar purrs “Gotta go. My parole officer needs to use the computer.”

Then there’s the audible that won’t shut up – the flight attendant with the incessant “Buh-bye. Bye now. Buh-bye.” And rather than lie to your friend about a meeting you have to run to, just tell them the truth with the spectacled pooch: “Gotta go, Gotta go. I gotta pee!”

We’ve also got a few emoticons that fit the goodbye ritual. There’s the “wave” emoticon which also doubles as a hello emoticon. I’m also a fan of “talk to the hand” emoticon . It’s a more abrupt way to end the conversation, but it has its uses. If you’ve really had enough, try the “not listening” emoticon .

One of my favorite ways to sign off IM? The “hug” emoticon.

And since it’s a cinch to share and watch videos in the Yahoo! Messenger conversation window, you can always send them a goodbye classic (watch below).

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

This latest version, 3.0.1.35554, includes a bug fix for display image issues, as well as a crash bug fix.

Download Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0

As always, we welcome your feedback about this latest version. To submit your feedback, go to the Help menu in Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0 and select “Send Feedback” to get started.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Now when you send or receive a link in an IM conversation, you can easily save it to your Delicious account and share it with friends. Here’s how it works…

Imagine that during an IM conversation, a friend sends you a link that you want to save. It could be a cool new website, important driving directions or a memorable video.

To save it, hover your mouse on the hyperlinked web address and look for a small “Bookmark” button nearby. Click it and a window will open up where you can enter and save details about the link to your Delicious account.

You can enter in notes about the link (“Where Sarah stayed in New Zealand”) as well as tags that will help other Delicious users find your link (new zealand, eco resort, four stars).

If you already have an account with Delicious, you may need to first visit Delicious.com to link it to your Yahoo! ID. But if you’re new to Delicious, you can create your account using your Yahoo! ID right in Yahoo! Messenger.

Delicious is not just a place to store your bookmarks, it’s also a place to see what’s hot and trending and find other Yahoo! users that are into your favorite websites. But you can use Delicious just as a private place to store your bookmarks. When saving a link, just click the “Mark as Private” box.

Yahoo! Messenger also supports the sharing of Delicious.com updates. So when you save a link to Delicious, your friends will see your latest update in Yahoo! Messenger, on their profile page, in Yahoo! Mail etc. It’s a great way to share what sites you’re into at the moment. You can always turn off Delicious updates on the Manage My Updates page on your Yahoo! profile.

The Yahoo! Messenger / Delicious.com feature is available to users on Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 and 10. So what are you waiting for? Go try it out and start sharing your favorite links with friends.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager