The announcement that Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger are partnering with Jet Blue to offer lightweight wifi services on flights is both extremely cool, and kind of sad at the same time for me.

Being that I’m traveling a lot now for work it becomes readily apparent when I’m in the air that it’d be nice to be able to connect to the web in order to get work done and communicate with colleagues, friends, and family.

An updated version of Yahoo Messenger arrived in a pre-beta preview for Vista users, who can install it in parallel with their existing Yahoo Messenger client.

How did I miss this post by Steve Rubel? Tired of doomsaying in the Web 2.0 bubble realm, he recently predicted an impending recession for poor old Google, based on several factors.

Microsoft has confirmed that a new version of its Messenger instant messaging software will ship with and when Mac Office 2008 hits stores.

While we don’t know anything about features, or even if it’ll be named Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger (presumably the new name, though), at least Mac fans are getting a new version.

If you’d like to make it easier for people to contact you via your blog (or MySpace or whereever you can post code), Windows Live Messenger has a site where you can create a nice-looking button in seconds that will get them in touch with your Live Messenger screen name.

Yahoo said today that it is adding new features to its instant messaging service.

Social networking site Bebo and Microsoft have partnered to bring Windows Live Messenger to Bebo users.

Online chatter about a vulnerability in Yahoo Messenger has proven accurate, as a flaw in the service’s Webcam capabilities can be exploited.

How would you like to search Google only for pages that were updated in the last 3 months? Well, thanks to Matt Cutts – ok, so maybe he’s just the messenger – you can use Google’s advanced search options to restrict your search to the newest results.

Ubiquity and interoperability are the key features in the newly launched, web-based Yahoo Messenger client: it runs on multiple web browsers (including Opera, yay!) and can chat with Windows Live Messenger users.

Wayne Crookes, a former campaign manager of the Green Party of Canada, is suing Google, Wikipedia and openpolitics.ca for libel. He is suing the sites for posting made by anonymous users on Google’s Blogspot, for an entry under his name on Wikipedia, and on openpolitics.ca, a political forum run by Michael Pilling a Green Party activist.

Today Microsoft and Reuters announce a deal which will bring Reuters News Alerts direct to consumers

Yahoo may be set to file opposition to AOL’s use of Instant Messenger at the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Yahoo has started integrating Yahoo Messenger into Yahoo Mail, just like Google did with Gmail over a year ago. Because of Yahoo’s cool tabbed IM interface, the IM window is full size, supersized even, making for lots of room for avatars, rich text editing controls, and timestamps.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Yahoo brings two services into an integrated communications package. Yahoo Mail beta users should start to see the Messenger functionality first discussed in November 2006.

While no doubt Google’s simple and clean applications have been a hit with some users, I’m really impressed with what Yahoo is showing off in its new Messenger for Windows Vista.

Today the MSN Soapbox Team have launched a new activity feature that will alow you to watch Soapbox videos on Windows Live Messenger in real-time with your friends.

Trying to fight your way through the mall for a picture of your kids with jolly old Saint Nick always end up the same way, with you knuckle-punching some rude soccer-mom in the throat for cutting in line, followed by the usual arrest, processing, and posting bail. Save yourself some grief thin 2006.

Microsoft released its newest chat client, Messenger 6.0, for the Macintosh platform in Universal Binary form.

Yahoo! Messenger with Voice has just greatly increased its number of potential uses. Yahoo “officially launched (out of beta) its newest IM service with more than 180 custom plug-in features available to users worldwide” last night.

Yesterday’s announcement from Microsoft and Yahoo! on the inter-operability between their instant messengers is a good step forward in making it even easier for people to communicate via the net: