It was only 5 short weeks ago that we launched the beta for Yahoo! Messenger 8. Since then we’ve been busy putting on the finishing touches and fixing a bunch of reported bugs. The result came out earlier this evening as we launched the production release of version 8.
As is kind of typical for internet software like this, the beta tends to garner much more attention, so when you finally push the production version, there isn’t always as much fanfare. But, this is the time that a broader marketing campaign will kick in, including promoting upgrades to the new version, so I’m hopeful we’ll gain a lot interest and users over the next months.
Tonight I thought back at my 2+ years at Yahoo and realized this is the 7th launch in which I’ve participated. My team is responsible for the web site, installers, localization, and most of the “release” activities, so we’re always on the hot seat on nights like this. It’s not always glamorous work, but I like being involved in these launches. At the end of the day, building great software is what motivates me the most and it’s great to stay connected to the release train like this.
As the website says: Get It Now!
Oh, and if you’re on the Mac, Yahoo! Messenger for Mac 3.0 beta has a new build posted that fixes several reported bugs.