Yahoo has launched its new beta version of Messenger.Yahoo Messenger 9 Beta launched 0n October 29, 2007 and it is now available for Windows XP and Vista. There are alot of changes made in this new beta version and it is available in a attractivr glassy look with support of 6 languages.

Here are the some features of this beta veriosn.

Flickr Photo Sharing
In addition to the desktop photo sharing Yahoo Messenger 8.1 had Yahoo Messenger 9 now allows you to share your Flickr photos with Yahoo contacts. You need to grant the Yahoo Messenger permission to use Flickr Stream to share photos first.

View Videos / Maps Inside Messenger Window
This is one more cool feature which I liked a lot which allows users to view videos right inside the messenger window itself. This is a neat feature as now you will not have to leave your the messenger window to watch videos sent to you by your friends and can enjoy it all in the comfort of your messenger itself.

Another thing I liked about this feature is that, it automatically detects the link and displays the video player without you having to do anything additional. It currently supports most of the popular video sites such as YouTube, Yahoo Video etc.

Forward Offline IM’s to SMS
Older Yahoo Messengers had a feature which would show you offline messages as soon as you logged in to the IM client. With Yahoo Messenger 9 you can now forward all your offline messages to your cell phone as an SMS. Pretty useful if you are expecting some important message from a friend and are unable to get online.

Better Contact Management

The new messenger sports a better contacts management, where you can view avatars of your friend, quickly send them an SMS, email or IM message. All your non IM contacts are now available as a separate group called Address Book doing away the tab that was available in the earlier version of YIM.

Gtalk Feature: Grouped Entries for Continuous Messages
Another new feature in the Yahoo Messenger 9 is a feature that already existed in Gtalk. In Gtalk when a person typed continuous messages without receiving a reply the messages is grouped together under a single entry. In older Yahoo Messengers every time you typed a message your id used to be shown along with the message.

Yahoo Messenger 9 now has the same feature as Gtalk and now shows continuous messages typed by the user without a reply as a group under a single entry. This helps in the conversation and makes reading easier.

Other Features
There are few other features in the new Yahoo Messenger 9 like new smiley’s, additional skins and localization version in more languages such as Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India (Hindi) and Vietnam.

The previous beta they had released for YIM 8 had lots of problems including crashes and incompatibility with old Yahoo version while sharing files. This version looks pretty much stable for a Beta.

Download the Yahoo Messenger 9 Beta or view a tour video of the latest messenger.And share your comments here after testing.

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