For the rest of this post I'll focus on just the voice and calling aspects. There are a bunch of other assets that Yahoo is integrating into their IM. It's worth a separate competitive post.

First the voice test. It's not up to Skype levels, at least not yet. In my tests I found it defaulted to a lower quality sound codec. I also managed to stress it with a connection that created a chipmonk voice for a couple of seconds. I'm told they have three audio codecs installed. The best quality claimed is a wideband codec. They use Xten's audio platform and I presume that is Speex. As all communications are P2P they are also using G711. This contradicts what I understand about a wideband audio codec as it limits the sampling frequency to 8khz. This shows some commitment to engineering to use SIP and thus open standards. Does it matter? Not really as they are a consumer play and we only care if it works. There is no current interconnect in this beta to the PSTN and so they remain very much a walled garden. They could always rip out this audio system and install another. For me the key learnings are in how they are beginning to massage the user interface.

Skype could learn a couple of things from both scrolling the buddy list, the "toaster" notification of an incoming call (which adds a chat answer option) and the behavior of the chat window. This is where Yahoo's research suggest that most exchanges start with a text message not a call. This is also where they have made an error in thinking "voice mail" rather than "voice messaging". Like Skype they still don't keep a copy of the sent voice mail/message for the sender. Still it's interesting that they are the first "major" to give up the traditional clumsy check and balance for accepting a call and added a true ringer. This also suggests to me (without evidence) that they may have lost more than their fair share of users to Skype.

There is still a way to go. The voice system is not integrated with the conference capabilties and the webcam features have not yet seen an upgrade. That's where it's not clear to me where this UI upgrade takes them.

What do we have in summary?

1. Yahoo has recognized the driver and stickiness that voice represents in architecting the future of this converged communication and networking space.
2. They appear to grok the convergence of modes, with IM and social networks and with telephony. They state they are PCtoPC only. If so then they better really work on the always-on experience.
3. They are working hard to integrate their assets into messenger. This could be a win or a loss. It's a desktop focus in a world that is going increasingly mobile. Still they haven't sorted out presence yet.
4. There is still an enormous amount of catching up to do. The jump that Yahoo made when they introduced the webcam and later supercam features is not in this edition. There's no indication that they have an API coming. I'd get working on one fast.

See also Yahoo's 'Voice Over IM' Targets Skype