Yahoo! launched a public beta for its next generation instant messenger service, offering free PC-to-PC calls, photo sharing, better tools to expand friends’ lists, increased spam protection, better integration with online games and other features. It does not provide direct PSTN connections.
The free worldwide calling feature to other Yahoo! Messenger users also integrates with Yahoo!’s voice mail service. Voicemail messages can be left for friends who are away from their desks or offline, and can be retrieved through a call history log that displays all voicemail messages, as well as in-bound and out-bound calls. To further personalize the PC-to-PC calling experience, people can customize ring tones for their friends.
The new Messenger client also adds a prominent search field in the conversation window to retrieve relevant Web search information from Yahoo! Search.
The next generation Yahoo! Messenger is launching simultaneously in 18 localized versions around the world including: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Germany, Korea, Mexico, Spain, South Asia, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States and Yahoo! en Espanol.
Currently, there are about 65 million Yahoo! Messenger users.
Skype has been downloaded more than 100 million times and has delivered over 8.1 billion minutes of talk time.http://messenger.yahoo.com
