Instant Messaging: Yahoo! Messenger Center

Yahoo! Messenger 6 Review

It's been a long time since we've seen a major release of Yahoo! Messenger, but it appears to have been worth the wait. Yahoo! Messenger 6 is now available for public beta testing, meaning that anyone who is interested can download it and give it a try. Here's my initial thoughts after playing with the new Y! Messenger 6 for the past week. Installation The installation went smoothly, but Yahoo! has added some new components to the "typical" installation package. In addition to Yahoo! Messenger, it installs the Yahoo! Companion Toolbar with Pop-Up Blocker, shortcuts to Yahoo sites, and makes Yahoo! Mail your default mail. For those reasons, I recommend choosing the custom install option, which lets you pick-and-choose the features you want. Signing In The sign-in screen hasn't changed, but when you login, you'll see a new, animated Y! graphic while it's connecting.

LAUNCHcast Radio
The first thing I noticed was the integration of the LAUNCHcast radio player. It occupies the tabs at the bottom of the contact list, and when I ran Y! Messenger for the first time, it was open as shown above. LAUNCHcast provides streaming audio in a wide range of musical genres. Many of the the "channels" are free, but some require a paid subscription.

The audio quality of LAUNCHcast was excellent on my broadband connection. One cool little extra: It automatically updates your status to show the title of the song you're currently listening to.

Thankfully, you can collapse the tab so it doesn't consume so much space, and Y! Messenger remembers your last setting when you open it back up.

New Smileys
Yes, there are a few new smileys, although I'll leave it to you to find them all.

Display Pictures
This sounds a lot like MSN's display pictures, and it is. Basically it lets you select a picture (photo or drawing) that you want to use to represent yourself to the world. When you chat with another Y! Messenger 6 user, they see your display picture in your chat window.

It's more flexible than MSN's display pictures, because the images aren't limited to squares.

Avatars
The new avatar capability is really unique. It's kind of like an animated buddy icon, or AOL's Super Buddies. You can select a cartoon representation of yourself (male or female) then customize the appearance. You can change skin color, hair, eyes, clothes and accessories. The options are somewhat limited right now, but it is apparent that Yahoo! is planning to offer additional options in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if they offered "premium" options at a cost at some point.

Once you've created your avatar, it shows in your chat windows. Send a smile and your avatar smiles; send a frown and your avatar frowns. It's very clever and fun to play with.

Games
As you can see there are also some new, integrated games that you can play while you chat. The nice thing about them is that there isn't a charge to play them. The selection is somewhat limited right now, but I expect we'll see more integration with Messenger and Yahoo! Games in the future.

Audibles
The new, Audibles feature is another really fun feature that sets Yahoo! Messenger apart from the rest.

Audibles are little animated characters that include sound, and send fun messages right inside your IM window. There are different categories for the audibles, covering hellos, goodbyes, flirts and game play (winning, losing, and taunts).

Audbiles are another feature where I hope we'll see new content added regularly.

Conclusion
Yahoo! Messenger 6 is still in beta testing, but it has been pretty stable for me. Some people have reported problems getting some of the new features to work, including LAUNCHcast, Audibles and Avatars. Nothing that would prevent you from chatting with your friends, but then, if they don't work, you're not getting much new other than the interface.

If you want to give it a try, you can download Yahoo! Messenger 6 beta for Windows from the official website. Be sure to add your comments to our forum discussion!