Right now cheap rates aren't compelling enough for me to change back. Concurrently the Yahoo client is not doing an effective job at targeting a real change in behavior. "With Voice" remains an afterthought. Moving too fast risks making users mad. Running at the pace they are going still feels like General Motors to me.

Josh Gershman, on behalf of Yahoo!’s Communications Products team Enhancements to Yahoo! Messenger with Voice:

Phone Out: U.S. audiences (including Yahoo! en Espanol) can easily stay in touch with their friends and family in more than 180 countries across the Europe, Asia and the Americas, with low cost calling from their PC to traditional phones and mobile phones. Calls within the U.S. and to more than 30 other countries can be made for two U.S. cents a minute or less. Specific low-cost calling rates can be found at: http://voice.yahoo.com.

Phone In: The Phone In service gives U.S. audiences the ability to receive calls on their PC from traditional and mobile phones. For $2.99 a month or $29.90 a year, people can select a personal phone number, and receive incoming calls at no additional charge. For instance, New York residents, who have friends and family in London, are able to choose a local London-based phone number. When remote friends and family make calls to the personal number, they will be charged for placing a local phone call to that phone number. People can choose to have multiple phone numbers, and wherever they travel, their phone numbers will follow them. In the beta service, country-based phone numbers are initially available in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States with additional country-based numbers available in the coming months.

Free Voicemail: People will now be able to take advantage of a free voicemail service with both their PC-to-PC inbound calls and Phone In calls. If a call is missed, whether from a PC, traditional phone or mobile phone, people can easily retrieve the message at no additional cost. Additionally, Yahoo! Mail now includes useful links to Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, enabling people to easily check their voicemail directly from Yahoo! Mail.

Introduction of ads: Yahoo! has made the strategic business decision to increase monetization of Yahoo! Messenger with the introduction of an unobtrusive ad in the client. As part of our thoughtful and considerate approach, we conducted a variety of usability tests and focus groups to ensure we are introducing it the right way. Our users told us that because we are providing a valuable free service, they accept ads. Ads will allow us to put even more resources behind developing and delivering compelling features.

Contact Search Bar: The new Contact Search Bar provides a fast way to find and quickly connect with friends and family. As people type their friends’ names, Yahoo! IDs, phone numbers, nicknames or any other information stored in their contact details, matching results will automatically populate the Contact Search Bar. Choose how to communicate with friends, whether it is through text IM, voice calling, e-mail or mobile text messaging, becomes easier than ever.

Licensing Global IP Sound: Committed to providing a high-quality call experience, Yahoo! Messenger with Voice is leveraging the GIPS VoiceEngine Multimedia infrastructure to deliver market-leading PC-to-PC and PC-to-Phone voice quality to consumers worldwide. GIPS Voice Engine Multimedia is a voice and video processing solution that handles all of the complex quality issues that come with IP communications including jitter delay, packet loss and acoustic echo.