Posted by Dan, a Yahoo! + Messenger Program Manager

Now Available!

As If Windows Live Messenger, the world’s largest Instant Messaging network, wasn’t big enough... it just got a whole lot bigger. We've joined forces with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, which means that you can use Windows Live Messenger to talk to your friends who use either. We are talking about over 300 Million users around the world that you can now communicate with through one client.

Technically, this wasn’t easy; we have been working on this for a while and had to try a few different ways to make it work.  We’re pretty excited about the solutions we’ve come up with for our first version of yahoo + messenger. Some of you may be thinking “but there are already other program out there that let me do this.” You’re half-right. Our solution is different than the existing ones because you only need one e-mail address to use both networks.  You don’t need a Windows Live & Yahoo! Account to make it work. So if you’re a Windows Live Messenger person, for example, you can keep the same address you’ve always used to sign in, but now have the ability to add and chat with your Yahoo friends.

To add a Yahoo! contact in Windows Live Messenger, (after you've signed up for the beta)just click on the add a contact button. Then type their Yahoo! ID + @yahoo.com (example: example@yahoo.com) Your Yahoo! friend will get an invitation, and once they accept you are ready to chat, see when they’re online, nudge them, send emoticons, send offline IMs, and share your witty personal status messages.

Remember, this is only the first version.  And though we are planning to add many cross-network features in the future, this should be more than enough to get you started.

So how do you get started? Sign-up on http://ideas.live.com. Enjoy!