A new version of Yahoo Messenger is available since more than a week on the Messenger web site, showcasing, like for other recent upgrades from the other major IM players, an increased interest in making these tools the common basic launching pad for collaboration and conferencing activities online. The new Yahoo Messenger integrates Launchcast, the sophisticated radio music streaming service, which allows you to build and grow your personal radio station (not as a broadcaster but as a listener). A slew of new features bring in much more sophisticated privacy controls (you can now hide from certain selected people), emotisounds, audibles, avatars and more presence enhancing features like IM environments which are actually mini-applications. If you look close enough you can see that YM is nothing short of a full conferencing application, and under many aspects it offers better performance, features (VoIP, video, file sharing, collaborative gaming, etc.) and usability than some of its more official counterparts. (Beware, present Beta version is still buggy). To keep your hands clean check out this great tour of all the new features of the upcoming new Yahoo Messenger.