By Austin Shoemaker, Senior Director, Product Management
Since we launched the new Yahoo Messenger back in December, people have been using it to send – and unsend! – any photo, message or animated GIF quickly and easily.
Here by popular demand, Messenger syncs and matches your mobile contacts instantly, so you can find and chat with your friends even faster. Make sure you have enabled access to contacts in the Messenger app for the best experience!
And, for the first time, Messenger now supports non-English languages, including Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Spanish, and more. Update your iPhone or Android app in the App Store or Play Store today, and keep an eye out for more coming soon!
By Jeff Bonforte,
SVP of Product & Engineering for Communication Products
We’re
unveiling the next generation of the venerable Yahoo Messenger, which offers a vibrant new messaging
experience, built from the ground up. The powerful new platform integrates the
best of the Flickr, Tumblr and Xobni platforms – built to serve you, for years
to come.
The new
Yahoo Messenger was created with group messaging in mind from the start. We’ve
made sharing, “unsending” and “liking” messages, photos and animated GIFs easy
and insanely fast – unlike anything you’ve experienced before.
The new Yahoo Messenger is available globally today on iOS, Android,
on the Web and in Yahoo Mail on the desktop. It has
a few superpowers that we think you’ll love once you try them. Let’s jump into
the details.
Photos, Photos, Photos
Drawing
from Flickr’s expertise, the new Yahoo Messenger really takes the beauty of
sharing photos to a whole new level. You can literally send hundreds of photos
at a time and they appear to everyone in the conversation almost instantly.
Not only
is the quality of the photos amazing when viewing on Yahoo Messenger, but you
can download the original in full quality. And you don’t need to worry about
limited photo storage, because the app loads images just as (actually, just
before) you need them. It’s like magic.
Love It or Unsend It
Today’s
messaging services are either ephemeral or permanent. The new Yahoo Messenger
is both. You can “unsend” any message, photo or GIF, and it will vanish
instantly from the conversation (not only from your view but everyone else’s
too). Poof!
Of
course, at the other side of the spectrum is love. Show some love with a “like”
on any comment, photo or GIF. Unsend and “like” are not only good for 1:1
conversations, but they are also invaluable for groups. For example, at Yahoo,
when we’re deciding where to meet for lunch, people throw out options on Yahoo
Messenger and the group votes on their favorite using “like.”
GIFs Are The New Emoji
Before
emojis there was that awkward moment in messaging where you were unsure what
the other person really meant. Then came emojis, which helped you to express
yourself. But why limit your reaction to an emoji? Everyone loves a GIF!
Now you
can search and find the perfect GIF in the new Yahoo Messenger app. Get instant
access to a virtually unlimited and ever-growing library of GIFs pulled from
the Tumblr community, where tomorrow’s most popular GIFs are born each day.
Smart Contacts
Like
Yahoo Mail, the new Yahoo Messenger has a brilliant smart contacts system
behind the scene, powered by Xobni’s industry-defining platform. This is
critical, because even more than email, messaging is all about the “who” in
your life.
For
example, our smart contacts system doesn’t just understand who you know, it
also understands the relationship between your contacts, so adding people to
the group is really fast and simple. Also, anyone in a group can add another
participant, change the name of the group or even change the group photo.
Really Fast…Seriously
Speed
with communications is critical and the new Yahoo Messenger sets the bar in
speed. In an area like photo sharing, it is almost inconceivably fast. Syncing
conversations between Yahoo Messenger on the Web, in Yahoo Mail and your
smartphone happens almost in real-time.
And if
you’re offline or have low connectivity (say when you’re flying or in a remote
area), you can continue to use the app and send messages or photos. When you’re
connected, Yahoo Messenger automatically sends them through without you having
to resend or refresh.
And More To Come
Today’s
launch is just the beginning. We’re going to continue to work hard to build the
best messaging product that you won’t be able to live without!
Give it a
try and let us know what you think. Still using our old Yahoo Messenger? Read more here.