Live screen sharing

Despite the Mac vs. PC ads that have completely run rampant these past few months, there’s still a lot going on for Vista. Yahoo Messenger plans on taking advantage of every single Vista user out there. It’s now previewing a new beta version of the Messenger for Vista, which has some key functionality so far. Yahoo’s looking for beta testers to hammer out the necessary kinks and details pertaining to the core functionality of Yahoo Messenger for Vista. ***

Yahoo announced on Thursday the general availability of its latest chat application, which enables users to do a lot more than just chat. The new Yahoo Instant Messenger with Voice, which offers telephony functions, features more than 180 plug-ins created by developers from inside and outside Yahoo. "Yahoo Messenger is being used in ways it never was in the past," said Jeff Bonforte, senior director of real time communication at Yahoo. For example, a plug-in called Yahoo Avatar Space lets people interact with their avatars, change the avatars' mood and customize the space with different decors and images from Yahoo Image Search. A Yahoo Movie Trailer plug-in lets people scroll through current movie trailers and watch them within the plug-in or in full-screen while IMing with a friend. Another plug-in, Yahoo Finance, lets people track stock and recommend stocks to friends. ***

update Microsoft has started limited testing of Windows Live Messenger, an update that expands the consumer instant messaging software into areas such as Internet phone calls. The revamp is essentially an expansion of MSN Messenger. It adds a number of features and continues the program's migration from a place to share short text messages into a manager for any number of modes of communication. Various enthusiast sites, including Mess.be and BetaNews, reported that a private beta of Live Messenger is imminent, while another fan site, ***