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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."
I'm wondering... Will they make it so that ANY of this runs on Linux? If not, why should I care?
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Another 5000 zombies for my botnet! Where's the API? Starting to write my "3rd party app" right now!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I will get people complaining that because I use GAIM I can't install their fancy new plugins.
Then they will vanish from the internet. Forever.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
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.
Here's the link to the story that they forgot. A pity, though. They're only opening up the IM for extra, user made, modules. I was hoping they published code for the Yahoo messenger for the community. Hell, I'd be happy if they'd just update the linux version or at least make the current versions more WINE friendly. I'd like my voice chat and video, please.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Viral infections and data mining tools that work from WITHIN the messenger itself. No more need to open up those nasty attachments, have a plugin that automagically executes files of all times and dials home without you ever needing to think about it....
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.
Animoog.org
O boy they are following the AOL-Wildtangent model..... Free with one IM program you get a bonus of Spyware!!!(oops I mean an enhanced browsing experience). Just what the world needs.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
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?
Yes, and don't forget the best part of the new beta. An advertisment at the bottom that you can't get rid of! Wonderful. I am downloading the current non-beta version and saving that one for future use forever.
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.
Damn, When I read that heading I thought maybe yahoo was going to open up their messager protocal.
This doesn't even deserve to involve the word 'open'. But it can use the word 'API'
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
First, where's the alleged link to the Reuters article referenced in the post? Never mind, 15 seconds of Google News helped.
Anyway, the article is a bit short on details, but the promises don't sound too, er, promising. What's it, really? Now people can write Javascriptlets and new plugins for messenger?
Yawwwwn.
Call me back when they open-source the client, release specs for the protocol, and accept input from the larger developer community. Until then, I'll be sticking with the people who have been doing all that for quite a while now.
After a second of holding your mouse still, a little yellow square will appear that says:
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.
Really, I'm surprised Y! Messenger's not dead already. I think I have maybe one contact that uses Yahoo's messenger. Just about everyone I know uses MSN. Even ICQ's less ubiquitous than it was six years ago.
Yahoo still has about 20% of the market. ICQ is less ubiquitous because it is now owned by AOL, who integrated it with AIM. The problem with IM, in general, is everyone is looking for the big win and wants their little walled garden to take over so they can make money as the gatekeeper of all IM communications. They should just all announce they are moving to open standard protocols, like jabber, and then we would not need cumbersome work arounds like multi-protocol clients. Use Trillian, but try to migrate everyone to Jabber, either by running your own server or using Google Gtalk. It will end this madness.
Yahoo! is so far behind in the IM market that they shouldn't even bother. Not to mention their client sucks, of course.
Do companies make money from their proprietary instant messengers? Is it just ad revenue?
Both. Some companies sell "pro" IM clients and a number get ad revenue from the download page or from ads embedded in the client. The real money, of course, is in dominating the entire space so you can begin charging for access or tying to other features. No one has managed that and hopefully Google will get them to give up on it.
However, when will it be that instant messenging gets a standard protocol (or regains it, i.e. IRC)? When I want to email someone, I know their address and I can email them, I don't have to think about which program they are using to read/write their email. When I want to call someone on the phone, I dial their phone number to reach them anywhere in the world.
Additionally a standard protocols allows an individual or company to run their own server for security and stability reasons. Luckily, such a protocol exists. It is called Jabber and is an approved, open standard. Google has implemented it for their GTalk IM system and Apple has implemented it in their iChat program. I think GAIM supports it as does Trillian (pro only?). The difficulty is, since the existing protocols and social networks are closed, people can't easily migrate away without the ability to interchange. Hopefully, Google will take over enough of the market that other companies will see the value in being able to intercommunicate and we will all get that standard protocol and a defacto standard as well. You can already send messages via the Jabber protocol to anyone who has a Gmail account and the IM client is built into the Webmail interface to it. It works the same as e-mail for addressing, (username@gmail.com or username@somedomain.foo).
Maybe google will have one.
They already do. Also, Jabber is widely deployed in enterprise businesses for secure, internal messaging.
And yet, the world moves on and Jabber continues to gain users.
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