All about Windows Live Messenger, providing news, reviews, support, and information for developing and improving your Messenger experience.
Some news from the Mac side of things. This snippet is from the MacWorld News pages:
Microsoft Messenger for Mac 6.0, a new version of Microsoft’s instant messaging application, is coming “later this year,” according to the company. It will include features such as federation with Yahoo! Messenger, customized emoticons and spell check. Users will also be able to display personal messages or what song’s playing in iTunes.
As it looks, we will - again - have to wait for video and voice support.
You can now sign up for the Yahoo! interoperability. Once you agree to the service agreement, you will be presented with a page saying to sign out and sign in again to activate the new functionality.
Windows Live Messenger 8.0.792 is required to use it, prior builds have been blocked from signing in, namely 8.0.0787. Your Yahoo! Messenger contacts will also need the latest beta version:
Does this work with all my Yahoo! contacts?
Yes. As long as your friends have the beta version of Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, you’re set. When you add them to your contact list, they’ll get all the information they need to gear up and connect with you.
Mario has posted his initial findings with the related changes to the new MSNP14 protocol.
Microsoft has today announced it will launch a limited beta of the awaited interoperability between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.
The two instant messaging networks tied together will form the largest IM community of around 350 million accounts. The press release states the interoperability will go as far as:
With the select emoticons, I imagine this is limited to what each client supports. Does Yahoo! have a goat emoticon? Perhaps the custom emoticons feature could be well used in this regard.
We should be able to sign up for the beta at Windows Live Ideas, according to the posting on the Windows Live Messenger Space.
Going by the traces of references[1][2] to the interoperability in the client we’ve seen in the last few weeks, and no direct mention of another new build or download, it looks like signing up at Ideas is all that is needed to active your account.
Just went to add a contact with the latest Windows Live Messenger and I noticed something appear at the top.
So does it work? I don’t know, I don’t know any Yahoo Messenger users. Soon see I guess 
Although we thought Microsoft released the final of Windows Live Messenger to the public two days ago, they are very far from the final copy. As of this morning, all users were unable to login to Yahoo!’s services, except to view the main page. A few hours later and with the release of Yahoo! Messenger 8 Beta, all services were back to normal.
That wasn’t the end though. The .NET Messenger Service suddenly refused any connection attempt I sent to it. So, I jumped to the forums and I found out that there was a new WLM (now version 8.0.0792) and that contained one major update that would bring us closer to the WLM-Yahoo! interop - MSNP14, thanks Mario for the discovery.
According to Mario, upon the client signing in it supports MSNP14, but the server still only supports MSNP13. Also, many more things have been added to the text library, such as:
33008, “Two accounts were found for %1, so two separate contacts were added for this person.”
33013, “Yahoo! Messenger with Voice”
33014, “To add {33013} contacts, sign up for the {61143} Beta”
33005, “Example: example@live.com, example@yahoo.com”
33007, “A friend on the {33013} network has added you to their Messenger List. To send instant messages to {33013} contacts, sign up for the {61143} Beta.”
So maybe the WLM team has fully prepared us with the tools we need to support the interop when the time comes. Until that time comes, you can find out more about MSNP14 and the upcoming interop on the forum. Also, get the updated build in English or visit Mess with MSN Messenger for links to other languages!
