Yahoo! Messenger, a free Instant Messaging Service from Yahoo!

Yahoo! Messenger is a free Instant Messaging service/application made by Yahoo! for Yahoo! users.

Yahoo Messenger service is available for every Yahoo! Users. This service can be used by installing Yahoo! Messenger client software on PC or phone, accessing from Yahoo! new Webmail interface, and via Yahoo! Web Messenger.

What is Yahoo! Id
You need to have a Yahoo! ID to enjoy yahoo! services such as messaging and email service. Yahoo! ID is either a yahoo username, or a full string of Yahoo! email address for registered users oh Yahoo Domains. The Yahoo Domains includes Yahoo.com, Ymail.com, rocketmail.com, and all country specific Yahoo Domain i.e Yahoo.co.uk, Yahoo.com.sg and etc.

Web Messenger
Yahoo! understand that installation of client application is not allowed for all PC users. Some people may use PC with guest authority so that they may not install anything on the computer. However, internet connection is available with web browsing as tha only internet service allowed. For such user, Yahoo! provides the web version of Yahoo! Messenger.

Emoticon, emotion icon
While chating and other instant messaging start with text-based services, it is difficult to express emotions through text. Thanks to the invention of emoticon, a combination of text and special characters to symbolize emotion of the parties in a text based dialogue.
In the first use, emoticon is just a text of two or three characters but now client and application automatically replace those characters with animated pictures.

Advertisement on Yahoo! Messenger application
The basic Yahoo! Messenger service is free for every yahoo! user because the service is funded by advertisement.
The Yahoo! Messenger advertisement is delivered in such a way so that the user may not recognise it as advertisement.

Yahoo! Paid Service
In addition to the basic free service, Yahoo! now provides paid communication services for Yahoo! users through Yahoo! Messenger. Paid services includes PC to phone call, international call, and premium PC to PC call. I will share more on Yahoo! Messenger paid service in the coming posts.