Offline messaging

Offline messaging, a feature long offered by Yahoo!, allows online users to send messages to their contacts, even if said contacts are not signed in at the time. The sender's offline contacts will receive these messages when they next go online.

[edit] Interoperability

On October 13, 2005, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced plans to introduce interoperability between their two messengers, creating the second-largest real-time communications service userbase worldwide: 40 percent of all users (AIM currently holds 56 percent). The announcement comes after years of third-party interoperability success (most notably, Trillian, Pidgin) and criticisms that the major real-time communications services were locking their networks. Microsoft has also had talks with AOL in an attempt to introduce further interoperability, but so far, AOL seems unwilling to participate.

Interoperability between Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger was launched July 12, 2006. This allows Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger users to chat to each other without the need to create an account on the other service, provided both contacts use the latest versions of the clients. For now, it's impossible to talk using the voice service among both messengers.