Yahoo! Messenger

Yahoo Messenger is a program designed to help you communicate with other people more effectively online. The program started as a text chat application. Although text chat is still a central part of the program, many other features have been added to the application. Yahoo Messenger usually sits in the system tray when first started. You need to log in with a Yahoo account to use the program. You cannot use email addresses or accounts from other services online. The basic interface for Yahoo Messenger looks very much like a web browser complete with tabs at the top. The difference is that the interface can get very crowded depending on what you do with the program.

The primary purpose of Yahoo Messenger is to connect you socially with other people online. You can choose to do this in a few ways. You can enter the Yahoo username of another person in order to initiate a direct text chat conversation. That conversation can include emoticons and other symbols available through the application. You have the ability to invite more than one person into your chat session. This can make it easy to collaborate online especially if someone is accessing services through a mobile device.

One of the most useful aspects of Yahoo Messenger is the video conferencing portion. You can have completely free video conferencing sessions with anyone else using the application. The quality of the video through Yahoo Messenger is very good. You can actually broadcast in high quality if you have a fast connection. There are minimum video artifacts and lag. Multiple people can take part in the video conferencing session. There is an option to meet new people through video chat by just broadcasting your stream publicly so that others can see it. The problem is that Yahoo Messenger does not have as many users as some newer video sharing services.

The latest version of Yahoo Messenger has included social media services like Facebook directly in the interface. You can talk to other people using Facebook chat through the application. You can also update your status and make other changes to the account. This is somewhat convenient if you are using Yahoo Messenger as your primary communication program online. It is far less convenient than simply using a Facebook app or going directly to the website. The addition seems to be in response to the demands of people who are using the application regularly.

Yahoo Messenger contains a number of social functions that you can use. A large portion of the application is dedicated to social gaming. These are games that you play primarily by interacting with other players online usually through a simple interface. You can join groups of people who all share your interests. There are radio stations that you can listen to for free based on certain genres of music or other interests. A search bar is placed prominently in the interface although it searches Yahoo for results. New features are likely to be added regularly.

Yahoo Messenger does have a few issues. The first is that the main interface is very crowded and sometimes confusing. There are too many various icons, updates and other widgets all packed into a very small space. Another issue is that the program is bloated. It is so full of various features and functions that it can noticeably tax the performance of an average computer system. A final issue is that it can be hard finding people through Yahoo Messenger because so many other forms of social media exist today. Yahoo Messenger is a good program for people who want to be highly social online and do everything through just one interface.

Pros

• Fully featured messenger application
• Exceptional video chat quality and options
• Do everything from one application

Cons

• Overly busy and crowded interface
• Uses many system resources while running