New services launched for instant messaging
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Instant-messaging software has evolved into the latest weapon in a fierce battle among major Internet companies to reap revenues off whatever you do, wherever you go online.
Many people spend hours a day with messaging programs active, shooting text to friends and co-workers online. These free products already go well beyond the typed word: People can swap files and chat with webcams and microphones.
Now there's even more.
Yesterday, Yahoo Inc. launched Internet radio and other new services around its messaging software. Microsoft Corp., meanwhile, is leveraging IM as a subscription gaming hub, while America Online Inc. is packaging weather.
"They are becoming much more of a destination as opposed to just a communications front-end," Rob Enderle, an independent analyst in San Jose, Calif., said of instant-messaging services. "They want to own the user experience."
Expanding IM gives Yahoo — the No. 2 instant-messaging service, with 19 million U.S. users in March, according to comScore
Media Metrix — a way to introduce users to services they may not have known about.
"The more Yahoo services people use, the more loyal they are, the more likely they are to come back and the more likely they are to tell friends," said Lisa Mann, Yahoo's senior director for messaging products.
The new Yahoo! Messenger software, available in a "beta" test yesterday with a final version due in late May, reconfigures the main window so your list of friends can remain on the screen as you visit other Yahoo services such as news, stocks and calendar.
The software adds several free features: You can invite friends to play chess or dominoes. The titles of songs you listen to appear on friends' "buddy lists" next to your name so they can listen in, too. You can perform searches with a co-worker and have results appear on both ends.
The integration of search, in particular, could give Yahoo an edge over current search leader Google, which unveiled a Web mail service this month to rival Yahoo's and Microsoft's. Google officials say they have no immediate plans for IM.
"Google would be smart to roll out an IM strategy and to do it fairly quickly," Yankee Group analyst Paul Ritter said.
But while IM can foster collaboration among co-workers, Ritter said, new features can also create distractions.
A February survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that 29 percent of full-time workers use IM at work. A study conducted last year by Harris Interactive for the Internet filtering company Websense Inc. says one in five workplace IM users populated at least 70 percent of their IM lists with personal as opposed to business contacts.
Nonetheless, IM providers aren't shying from new features.
Last week, AOL began bundling WeatherBug with the most popular IM software, AOL Instant Messenger. The company is working to integrate features — for example, issuing localized weather alerts through IM.
AOL also lets you obtain movie times, stock quotes, recipes and phone listings for local businesses by sending IM queries to special "buddy" addresses. And paid subscribers can update their AOL Web journals by sending an instant message.
AOL's main messaging products — it's the market leader with 44 million U.S. users — have become key delivery platforms, said Edmund Fish, AOL's senior vice president for desktop messaging.
