Yahoo! Messenger Gets New LAUNCHcast Features

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 12 Feb 2009

One of the most sought-after plug-ins for Yahoo!’s instant messaging client is Yahoo! Music LAUNCHcast Radio, which will now suffer some changes because Yahoo! partnered up with CBS Radio. It is nice to see Yahoo! hard at work on making their IM client for Windows and Mac better, even though sometimes their efforts backfire.

“Starting February 16, CBS Radio will power LAUNCHcast Radio. LAUNCHcast Radio will still be accessible from the Yahoo! Messenger plug-in (as well as the Yahoo! Music website). However, it will be hosted and operated by CBS Radio rather than by Yahoo!. With this change in service, you’ll still be able to listen to most of your favorite pre-programmed LAUNCHcast stations plus you’ll get access to CBS Radio’s wide variety of local music, news, talk, and sports programming,” explains Product Manager with Yahoo! Messenger, Sarah Bacon.

On the downside, you will lose some of the features you have grown accustomed to: custom “My Station” and “Moods” stations will be shut down, and so will your LAUNCHcast Plus subscription. Starting with the 12th of February, these subscriptions will be canceled, meaning that you will have to listen to ads and commercials just like regular listeners. On the upside, radio stations that used to be available only to LAUNCHcast Plus subscribers will become generally available.

Sarah Bacon again: “As a Yahoo! Messenger user, you don’t need to do anything to your plug-in or to Messenger to continue enjoying LAUNCHcast Radio powered by CBS Radio. The transition will be automatic. In addition, if you have experienced any bugs with the current LAUNCHcast plug-in, those should go away when the plug-in is updated for the switch. Also note that only users in the US and Canada will be able to access the LAUNCHcast plug-in.”

Still have something to ask on the topic of LAUNCHcast’s transition to CBS radio? Check out the FAQ page that Yahoo! has set up here .

If you would like to get Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 for Windows, a download location is available here.
If you would like to get Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0 Beta 4, a download location is available here.


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