Yahoo Messenger For Mac: At Long Last... And Time Has Passed

Yahoo has finally released a Mac version of it's Messenger client that support voice. I reported in Yahoo Messenger Mac 3.0 Beta: Still No Voice!? back in September of 2007:

Emoticons, schemoticons! Voice is the thing that everyone is waiting for and expecting (see Yahoo! Messenger 3.0 beta 2 for Mac finally hits the streets).

This is the development group that stated at a briefing over a year ago that the Mac was going to be the leading platform for development, and that all new Messenger innovation was going to happen there first. Well, not if their endless cozying up to Microsoft continues to be first priority, I guess.

Mac Version - Yahoo! Messenger, originally uploaded by Stowe Boyd.

So it's out.

It made me realize how far things have changed relative to web-based communication. A few years ago I spent my day instant messagin, and while I still have a significant number of IM sessions -- in Gtalk (AIM), and Skype -- I literally *never* use Microsoft and Yahoo IM anymore. Not only that, but Twitter, and the streaming, open discourse mode that it fosters, has decimated my official IM client usage.

The Twitterati are at the start of something very, very interesting.

Amazing that AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google seem to have missed this new thing -- at least so far.