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Yahoo! Opens up Their Instant Messenger

prostoalex writes "Reuters is reporting on the new release of Yahoo! Messenger, which will allow third-party applications and plugins to run within the Messenger environment. From the article: 'Initial partners include 30 Boxes, a calendar-sharing site that competes with Google Calendar, commodities trading site Hedgestreet.com and Pando.com, which offers a service for sharing videos or other files via BitTorrent technology. More than 100 mini-programs will be available initially.' The application is currently available in beta. Relatedly, Microsoft is removing the beta warning label from Windows Live Messenger and promises better voice communications, landline calls and future integration with Yahoo! Messenger."

8 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. AOL Triton?? by gelfling · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Dear lord why are they making shit programs like this. Do you actually know someone who wants to use their computer to videochat at the same time they're talking to someone and IMing a third while downloading something? These IM clients have morphed into horribly bloated slow, cranky fragile pieces of junk. Just what we need - an MS lab project that they magically took the 'beta' tag off even though its the same junk as last week - to compete in the same space as all the other junk.

    And of course it will be lashed into WGA and have about 3 million vulnerabilities that never finish getting patched. OK I'm getting closer to a wholesale Mac swap everyday.

    1. Re:AOL Triton?? by cgenman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Do you actually know someone who wants to use their computer to videochat at the same time they're talking to someone and IMing a third while downloading something?

      I've actually video chatted with one person while IMing a second and downloading something. And I'm not exactly a spring chicken anymore.

      It's an easy usage pattern to fall into. You have a camera plugged in, someone wants to chat from a 'net cafe overseas (which frequently have IM cameras). You have a friend who is making fliers for an event, and wants to show it to you. Done. A video chat, an IM, and a download going.

      If you want to see something really pointlessly cool, check out Scribis in SkyOS. Not only can you chat, you can send video links as live playback.

  2. Integration with Yahoo! Maps? by Lord+Satri · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would not be surprised to see Yahoo! instant messenger to integrate with Yahoo! Maps. That's a trend that MS, Google and Yahoo are definitely focussing on. You can already map your Jabber contacts on Google Maps or Google Earth. Yahoo! Maps licensing restrictions were also alleviated considerably during last week's Where 2.0 conference.

  3. Re:At least they have an OS X version by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No, apologies. I reject to use any companies product if they don't give a sh*t to my platform of choice. That means I won't use a third party client to access their precious services too. I use the Yahoo web (java,another story!) if I am in desperate need.

    ICQ 3.4 is both classic and os x version in single application package based on which OS you doubleclick it. It does send and resume files which Yahoo can't over 1 mb. In fact using Yahoo Mac messenger (!) to use any critical data is a huge risk since it is uploaded to website first. Non encyripted too.. Yes, no HTTPS.

    I may be naive for thinking it (AOL!) but if there were couple of good feedback from Apple users , ICQ could be still updated. In fact it works perfectly. Just lacks voice chat. It works fine on OS X 10.4.6 on my Quad G5. I can even send contacts :)

    Yahoo is making a weird joke by offering video chat but NO voice! People at Mac usenet groups ask where is that hidden "audio input menu" as they can't imagine a company could be that stupid to offer video but no voice. They use SKYPE for voice.

    I think people should use Jabber or AIM , both supported natively by iChat. You can add ICQ people to AIM too.

    It would be a perfect World if everyone switched to Jabber but you know the deal... Just look how everyone switched to MSN Messenger because Microsoft treated them like sheep, just added to startup and made it a bit difficult to get rid of.

    I wonder if Microsoft extended these "Sheep" way of achieving things for popularity of that crap which can't even resume files (2006!)... I mean, there is a patch, just a patch required for couple of resources to make Yahoo messenger act like a civil application on OS X. An end user having zero access to source code did it himself. Lets be a little paranoid?

  4. Re:One thing by neoform · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They don't even care for OS X version.

    Yup, and they don't even care about windows.

    Yahoo messenger is extremely bloated (uses 30-50megs of ram), it crashes ALL the time on me (on multiple computers), and last of all, the protocol itself (YMSG) is horribly designed, no logic used whatsoever when they created it.

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  5. Yahoo Messenger opening by kckman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I applaud Yahoo for opening Messenger to 3rd Party modules. For those people who use the service, myself among them, Yahoo must update Messenger for OSX, Linux. It is blatent disregard for the market that they are lax in updating non-Windows Messenger. This "tool" is the only Windows application I use, and the only one keeping me from leaving dual-boot Windows/Linux behind forever in favor of Linux.

  6. Upcoming messenger integration by adinu79 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Try this little experiment. Keep your mouse hovered above the top visibility drop-down. (the one that says: - Available to everyone).
    After a second of holding your mouse still, a little yellow square will appear that says:
    You appear as
    Online to 1000 Contacts
    Offline to 0 Contacts


    Microsoft LCS Status: Online to everyone


    Could this be the first sign that the client at hand already has the MSN Protocol connection modules integrated? Wonder why they're not activated at all yet, as this is the only sign I've found of this and even this seems some kind of slip from the YM Programmers.
  7. How is this better than Jabber again? by Baloo+Ursidae · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And yet, the world moves on and Jabber continues to gain users.

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