YouMail let me know they’ve released a new version of their application for BlackBerry smartphones. Now at v2.5.17, this update adds some new features that make it an even better voicemail alternative. I’ve used YouMail since early 2008 and couldn’t be happier with the service, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an alternative to the default voicemail provided by their carrier. Here are the changes for the new version:

• Visual caller id. Now you’ll really know who your callers are – even when they’re not in your address book! You’ll see a picture, name, city and state, and number for almost every call!
• Contact uploads. Now you can upload your contacts, link them to Facebook, and get even better Caller ID and smarter greetings. To upload contacts, hit Menu, Settings, and Upload Contacts. To connect to Facebook, hit Menu, Settings, Account, and Connect to Facebook.
• Faster playing. You can now hit the “space bar” to play a message- no more scrolling to the play button.

For more info go to youmail.com or to download the BlackBerry app find it here in BlackBerry App World.

YouMail let me know they’ve released a new version of their Visual Voicemail Plus application for BlackBerry smartphones. Now at version 2.3.4, the app now lets users access some website content right from the BlackBerry app. Here are the new features in this version of the YouMail app:

• In-App Community Greetings. Users can now easily browse, search, and add to YouMail’s growing set of tens of thousands of user-provided greetings within YouMail’s BlackBerry app itself. With a few clicks, YouMail’s users can let people know they’re in a meeting or on a plane during the day, while turning on humorous greetings (including “Rickrolling”) for friends and family at night.
• Number Search. YouMail has also added one-click search within its BlackBerry application. The YouMail user now need only choose the “Caller Search” menu option to search for more info on the caller’s phone number..

“YouMail is known for great caller ID and its greetings community,” said CEO Alex Quilici. “We’ve extended the application to make it easy to find even more information about callers and to easily find and use pre-recorded greetings.”

YouMail is available to post-paid mobile users in the US on all major carriers including AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile. YouMail can also be used to unify a user’s mobile voicemail with their voice messages from VOIP service providers such as Google Voice, MagicJack, OOMA, and Vonage.

I’ve used YouMail since early 2008 and couldn’t be happier with the service. It’s a very useful voicemail app/service that every BlackBerry owner should try if they’re looking for a better, alternative voicemail option. To download the YouMail Visual Voicemail Plus app you can find it here in BlackBerry App World or for more info go to youmail.com.

It’s been a while since we last mentioned an update to the YouMail Visual Voicemail Plus application for BlackBerry smartphones. This app allows you to connect to your online YouMail account to sync voicemails and contacts, download audio, edit settings, greetings and more. Here’s the changelog for version 2.2.6:

• Eliminates places where the app seems to “lock up” and/or drain the battery.
• Makes the app behave better if it’s having trouble talking to our servers.
• Adds internal monitoring so we’ll more quickly know about any problems.

For more info and to download the free YouMail app check it out here in BlackBerry App World.

The Bellshare team decided to put their popular BerryBuzz application for BlackBerry smartphones on sale today in celebration of Thanksgiving! This app allows you to create custom LED colors or repeating audible alerts and vibrations for:

• • E-Mails
  • SMS/MMS
  • Calls
  • BlackBerry® Messenger (BBM)
  • E-Mails, SMS and Calls from SPECIFIC CONTACTS
  • Missed Calls, PIN Messages, Level 1 Messages, Calendar, Tasks, Coverage Indicator, Battery Low, Battery Charging, Battery Full
  • AIM, AP Mobile News, BerryReader, BerryWeather, BeejiveIM, Blaq, crunchSMS, eBay, Facebook, GoogleMail, GoogleTalk, GoogleVoice, ICQ, instango, IM+, Kik Messenger, MSN Messenger, MeterBerry, myKite, MySpace, Nimbuzz, OS 6 Social Feeds, OpenBeak, Pingchat, pMessenger, Pocket Informant, Skype Mobile, SocialScope, Trillian, TweetGenius, Tweetissimo, Twitter, Ubertwitter, Viigo, Whatsapp, Yahoo! Messenger, YouMail

Other features include rapid disco colors, unlimited number of custom LED colors, mix and match colors for one alert, mute all LED alerts and reminders at night and optimized for minimum battery and memory usage. BerryBuzz is available for all BlackBerry devices running OS 4.2.1 or higher for $2.99 today only, after today it goes back up to $5.99.

BerryBuzz for BlackBerry today was updated to version 3.0.66 with a few new feature additions, improvements and bug fixes. Here are the changes in the new version:

• Added support for YouMail Visual Voicemail
• Added support for Tweetissimo
• Added support for crunchSMS
• Improved contact matching for incoming calls (fixes LED not working for contacts)
• Fixed SocialScope support
• Fixed clearing of IM+ notifications
• ‘Clear messages on first key activity’ now applies to messages, not only e-mail/SMS
• Fixed activation not working via direct TCP/IP
• Fixed custom profiles being deleted on BerryBuzz deinstallation (OS 5.0 only)

I’m glad Bellshare continues to update BerryBuzz with support for other applications because it makes it that much more useful and versatile. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to extend their BlackBerry’s alert system with custom LED colors, vibrations and more. If you have a BlackBerry running at least OS 4.2.1 you can get the free trial or buy it in the store for $5.95.

I’ve used YouMail for over 2 years now, it hasn’t let me down once and continues to get better and better. When I started using YouMail they didn’t have a BlackBerry application so you can imagine how much better/easier it became to manage my voicemail once they did. Today the YouMail Visual Voicemail Plus application was updated to version 2.0 with the following changes:

• Streamlined User Interface
  • The main screen now shows the number of new messages and each caller’s photo or avatar, which can be imported automatically from Facebook.
  • The message play screen supports fast-forward and rewind, allowing users to get through their messages even more efficiently.
• Enhanced Organization Tools
  • Users can access any folders directly from the App, not just the Inbox, including standard Saved, Spam and Trash folders, as well as user-created folders.
  • Users can turn their voicemail box into a “To Do” list by easily flagging messages for follow up directly in the App.
• Improved Transcription Experience
  • The play screen now shows more of the transcribed message text, lessening the need to scroll.
  • Users can copy and paste directly from the transcription, allowing them to easily insert message text into searches or responses.
• Faster Voicemail Follow Up
  • The YouMail App is now integrated with the phone’s default SMS client, enabling users to easily reply to voice messages using TXT messages.
  • Simpler menus allow users to easily forward and reply to voicemail while including the original voicemail as a MP3 or WAV file.

The YouMail BlackBerry app is available as a free download in the BlackBerry App World for all devices on the AT&T, AllTel, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, USCC and Verizon Wireless networks. In order to use the YouMail app you will need an account at youmail.com, available free or premium with added services.

If you’re signed up for the YouMail newsletter then chances are you’ve already received this in an email. For those of you that aren’t, the YouMail BlackBerry application has been updated to version 0.97 with a significant amount of changes.

• YouMail Is Much Smarter
  • YouMail can now detect new voicemail WITHOUT needing TXT alerts or “polling”, leading to better battery life and no hassle with TXTs. Instead, YouMail reliably detects e-mail alerts going to your phone – just go to application settings, turn off “TXT alerts” and “polling”, and turn on e-mail alerts.
  • YouMail can now make sounds, flash the LED, and vibrate for new voicemails, just like you can for TXT, MMS, and E-mail messages. Check out your profile settings (may be called Sounds) and you’ll find a new YouMail option– we’re now completely integrated with the BlackBerry’s built-in Notification service.
  • YouMail now gives you more greeting control: you can control what YouMail does with “unknown callers”, “blocked callers”, and “smart greetings”.
  • YouMail lets you try out our voice-to-text transcriptions with a single click from the application
• YouMail Looks Much Better
  • We’ve made dates much easier to read – “today”, “yesterday”, “Mon 2/1”, etc.., and made it easy to see new messages by displaying the caller name in BOLD.
  • We’ve completely redesigned the screen that plays messages – which should make them easier to play and read.
• YouMail Connects Better And Boots Faster
  • We’ve reworked YouMail to handle network problems much more efficiently, which will especially impact those of you with spotty coverage or unreliable WiFi connections. There is now much less data traffic, more efficient and less frequent authentication, and smarter connection attempts.
  • We now ensure that voicemail audio files on SD-cards when the phone boots up – so you can now upgrade YouMail without worrying about old voicemails having to all be downloaded again.
  • We now handled some relatively rare cases that caused problems downloading voicemails. Some Blackberry phones redirected our audio requests through other services – and this now just works. Other Blackberry servers only allow small files to be transferred – if you have this problem, just go to “Storage “ and choose the “chunk audio” option).
• YouMail Has Better Troubleshooting
  • We now provide user-friendly information about the network and authentication status of the application – easily accessible from the about screen.
  • We’ve made it effortless for you to tell us if there’s problem – just click the “Send Log” button on the About screen, and it’ll create an e-mail telling us exactly what’s happened with your application. Just add a brief note about what you were doing, and we’ll be able to quickly diagnose any issue.

I’ve used this since 2008 and haven’t had any problems with it. The YouMail BlackBerry app is available for all devices as a free download in the BlackBerry App World.

YouMail let me know that they have updated their Visual Voicemail Plus app for BlackBerry to version 0.96.1, which is unfortunately only available in the BB App World.

This version should be much faster to use, works much better on phones with limited available memory, and is even more reliable – the top issues that our users have asked us to address!

It’s faster because now you can do key functions simply using shortcut keys, letting you fly through your voicemail.

The application is also now much more “memory aware”. Many of you have said that you’re running out of memory on your phones, given all your pictures, music, and other content. Now YouMail behaves much more intelligently when your phone or external memory reaches capacity, by doing things like on-demand downloading when memory gets full and removing the audio for your oldest messages from the phone – while keeping them stored safely and securely and accessible online at YouMail.

Inbox Shortcut Keys

• Alt-Del : Delete Message
• F : Forward Message
• S : Save Message
• X: Move to Spam Folder
• T: Scroll to the top of the list
• B : Scroll to the bottom of the list
• Space : Open message

Message Playback Shortcut Keys

• Alt-Del : Delete Message
• F : Forward Message
• S : Save Message
• X: Move to Spam Folder
• N : Next Message
• P : Previous Message
• Space : Play/Pause
• Send Key: Switch to Speaker/Headset

I’ve been using YouMail for over a year and a half now and am very pleased with it considering that their basic services are available for free.

Head on over to YouMail.com to sign up for an account and check out their online site or grab the latest version of the BlackBerry app in the BB App World.