Chatting With Visitors to Your Personal Web Page
| What Is...? | Creating a Pingbox | Adding a Pingbox to Your Personal Web Page | Editing a Pingbox | Instant Messaging | Disabling or Deleting |
What Is Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox™?
Ever wonder who’s visiting your personal Web page, your blog, or your social network page? Ever wish you could chat with them? If you add a Yahoo! Messenger Pingbox™ to the page, you’ll know when you have visitors, and you’ll be able to instant message each visitor through the Pingbox™.
When you create and add a Pingbox to your Web page, it lets you know about visitors by listing their names under a special Pingbox group on your Messenger List. The Pingbox is visible on the Web page and visitors can use it to instant message you as long as you’re signed into Messenger. Just another way that Yahoo! keeps you connected.
You can turn a Pingbox off and on as it suits you. If you’re getting messages from someone you don’t want to talk to, disable the Pingbox. It remains on the page, but visitors think that you’re offline.
What’s Next
A few things to note while conversing with visitors to your Web pages.
Each website has different rules about who can visit your page. Some allow anyone to visit while others require you to specify who can visit. Yahoo! Messenger never knows who is visiting your page, so consider any visitor to be anonymous and take care when conversing with a visitor.
Each conversation you have with a visitor is between the two of you. No one else can see your conversation.
A Pingbox group differs from other Messenger List groups in that you can’t move contacts in and out, and you can’t rename or delete the group unless you rename or delete the Pingbox.
You can’t change your stealth settings with Pingbox visitors, but you can disable a Pingbox so that visitors see you as offline.
You must be signed into Yahoo! Messenger to converse with Pingbox visitors. Though you use a conversation window similar to the window you use to instant message your contacts, there are some limitations.
You can’t use many of the features, such as ignoring the visitor, sharing files and photos, making calls, and using Audibles or IMVironments.
Pingbox conversations aren’t archived, but you can save the conversation as a text file.
Words to Know
- Audible: an animated character inserted in an instant message that says something out loud to your contact after you send your message, such as "Welcome" or "Dude!"
- IMVironment (IMV): a themed environment that you can select when instant messaging your friends. Potentially, both you and your friends see the IMV during your conversation.
- Pingbox: an embedded box on a Web page where visitors to the page can send you instant messages and which lists visitors on your Messenger List.
- Pingbox group: a unique Messenger List group that lists visitors to the Web page to which you added a Pingbox.
- Stealth setting: a setting that allows you to choose when specific contacts see you as online or offline.