Yahoo Messenger returns with a focus on photos

Yahoo says it will release a new version of Yahoo Messenger on Thursday. The new version runs on iOS, Android, in the browser and in Yahoo Mail on the desktop. The revamped platform integrates Flickr, Tumblr and Xobni.

The company writes this on its Tumblr. With the new messaging service, Yahoo is fully committed to photos, drawing on the knowledge available at Flickr. For example, it is possible to send hundreds of photos at once while they immediately appear to everyone at the same time. It should also be easy to download the original version of a photo. The app does not directly save photos locally, which saves space on a device.

Another trump card is that it is possible to ‘bounce’ something that will make everyone’s photos or messages disappear from a conversation. It is also possible to add animated gifs from the ‘library’ of the Tumblr community from within the app itself. For the time being, it is not possible to create gifs from the app. Yahoo sees the gifs as the new emojis. Via Xobni, the application must be smart about contacts and must understand to which group someone belongs and how mutual contacts are made.