Until this assignment was given to us, I had never heard of Avatars as a feature of Yahoo Messenger. I only heard about Yahoo's messenger service when my dad asked me to install it to communicate with him when he was living in Singapore. Since I did not hear about these features from my peers or from advertising, nor do I know anyone who uses Yahoo messenger, I think Yahoo has not been very effective in reaching this target market. However, another may be their market choice. Perhaps the US market is not where this feature can grow in popularity. There is Yahoo avatar's for Yahoo Asia with many different looks for the characters; from a stylish boy with his motorbike in Taipei to a older business man from Dubai, the characters had many options. I believe maybe Yahoo is making the right choice by choosing to expand features on this particular segment of the market. I think the US market and the culture is different as far as technology than Asia and that especially applies to the youth of both markets. If Yahoo were to try and re-introduce the avatar feature to American college students, Facebook should be involved. Facebook has now opened it's doors to many outside applications, and having an extension through a Facebook application for Yahoo Messenger or Avatars might motivate the college student audience to try it.
-Jane Brownfield
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Do you think members of Facebook/Myspace would enjoy and/or understand using an avatar?
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