Good Morning, Vietnam!

A few weeks ago, some members of the Yahoo! Messenger team traveled through Vietnam en route home from a conference in Asia. With the help of some local Yahoos in Ho Chi Minh City and a research company, they set out to interview some Messenger users.

Billed as an immersion trip, their goal was to observe and interview Vietnamese users using Yahoo! Messenger in different environments. They interviewed users from 16 to 25 years of age in their homes and in Internet cafes.

In Vietnam, Yahoo! Messenger is the most popular instant messaging application, and our users there are really enthusiastic about it. While we do offer Messenger in more than a dozen languages, we don’t yet offer it in Vietnamese, so these users all use the U.S. version.

Despite a possible language barrier, they take full advantage of Yahoo! Messenger and especially love the expression features like emoticons, audibles, Avatars, webcam, and IMVironments — they seem to use every feature we offer. Another thing we learned: Just changing the location of a single button in a new release can wreak havoc on their usage patterns!

The team met several users who were especially passionate about Messenger and Avatars. As thanks for their participation in the research, we wanted to do something special for them. So with a few snaps of the digital camera, we brought their images home and sent them to the Avatars team. Our artist went to work, and a few days later, their Avatars were born.

These new Avatars based on our Vietnamese friends will make their official debut on February 27. If you haven’t been by in awhile, check out our Avatars site. There are new accessories and outfits added often, so you never have to wear the same thing twice.

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