RSSMicrosoft, Yahoo Bridge IM Networks
By Nate Mook | Published July 12, 2006, 10:55 PM
Microsoft and Yahoo have followed through on a promise made nine months ago to enable interoperability between the companies' instant messaging networks. Beginning late Wednesday, customers will be able to beta test the functionality by registering their accounts.
The effort, announced in October, was expected to be complete last quarter, but Microsoft developers said they had to try a number of different technical methods to make it work. The Redmond company still considers the interoperability to be in beta, and adjustments will be made before the feature is available to all users.
"We're pretty excited about the solutions we’ve come up with for our first version of yahoo + messenger," said Microsoft program manager Dan M. "I have been working on this for way too long. It was awesome to work with the Yahoo! Messenger team on this project and some amazing people here at Windows Live."
Initially, the two companies have focused on enabling text messaging between Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Voice capabilities across the networks will be supported at a later date, but cross-network video conferencing is not currently in the plans.
The agreement marks the first time major players in the highly-competitive IM industry have officially partnered up to enable cross-network communication. Interoperability has always been a hot topic among instant messaging providers, but had never yielded a compromise.
Yahoo and Microsoft together will command over 50 percent of the instant messaging market, with more than 350 million accounts in total. The pressure is now on AOL, which has long been the dominant force in instant messaging.
AOL and Google inked a deal to link their IM networks as part of an investment by the search giant in the struggling ISP, but no date for interoperability has been set.
In order to send messages from a Windows Live Messenger account to someone on Yahoo! Messenger and vice versa, users must download the latest builds of the software they want to use. Microsoft will make a new Messenger beta release available on ideas.live.com, along with a signup process to enable interoperability.
Likewise, Yahoo will host a beta signup on its Messenger with Voice Web site. Yahoo users must be running version 8 of the software, which is currently in beta.
The interoperability beta program will be limited, Microsoft said, but the companies are expected to roll out the feature to all customers within a few months.
"To add a Yahoo! contact in Windows Live Messenger, (after you've signed up for the beta) just click on the add a contact button. Then type their Yahoo! ID + @yahoo.com (example: example@yahoo.com)," explained Dan M.
"Your Yahoo! friend will get an invitation, and once they accept you are ready to chat, see when they’re online, nudge them, send emoticons, send offline IMs, and share your witty personal status messages...And though we are planning to add many cross-network features in the future, this should be more than enough to get you started."
only worked the first day... has not worked since :-( cant IM my yahoo ID or wlm ID ...wtf? lol
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|Where can i get a @windowslive/live.com id????
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|For some if you register for the yahoo interoperability you might find that afterward MSN Messenger Live won't connect any more, even though the servers are up and running just fine.
I found two solutions using Google.
1 - unregister, I have no idea how to do that :)
or 2 - at least in my case shut down ZoneAlarm, then you can connect with messenger and then restart ZoneAlarm.
I don't know if the same problem exists with other firewalls.
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|Funny should mention that I am unable to use my normal login with it now since I went yo live Ideas and enable the Yahoo! contacts for it and even shutting down ZoneAlarm doesn't help yet my other ID that has not been activate for Yahoo! works fine and poor MS are at a loss as to whats wrong but they are trying bless there cotton socks :)
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|I welcome the bridge. Though Yahoo messenger supported Tamil UNICODE I could not find and IME (Input Method Editor) that works with Yahoo IME. Although one solution came for Gaim but it was not very userfriendly. I tested it today and it's amazing. Quite happy to see my mother tongue Tamil on yahoo messenger via intergration of Windows live messenger. I welcome this deal. Fantastic
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|Even you can type directly in tamil unicode in the yahoo messenger and any other application using your own keyset(you can design your own keyboard) using the software called "VARIYURUMA".i.e Any Key :: Any Font(including Unicode) :: Anywhere
For more details mail me.
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|It will become problems for ICQ. Theye did not have much things to "sell"
so I suggest ICQ must innovate to keep survive
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|ICQ was great before AOL bought them out. After that, more than half of the messages I received are spam. My friends and I gave up on ICQ shortly.
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|Jesus Christ, you just don`t get it, do you?
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|Has Mr. Christ gotten back to you? ;)
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|Finally...there will be a day when I can get rid of WLM. I have one contact left on there everyone else has migrated to YIM and AIM. This is for sure going to be a plus when it's done.
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|ummm...that day has been around for a long time, that day was long time ago when someone created a free, open source program called Gaim. It not only supports MSN, AIM, & Yahoo but also:
* Bonjour iChat (Gaim refers to it by its previous name, Rendezvous)
* DirectNet, 3rdparty plugin for DirectNet - peer to peer instant messenger
* Gadu-Gadu
* Google Talk
* ICQ (via OSCAR)
* Internet Relay Chat
* Jabber (XMPP)
* Lotus Sametime
* Novell GroupWise
* OpenNAP
* QQ, 3rdparty plugin from OpenQ
* IMPS, 3rdparty plugin from Smart VAS
* SILC
* Zephyr
* Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
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|It's different. With Gaim, you have to sign in with all those accounts, with this, you connect to another network with just 1 account.
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|Here's that memo you missed about 234987241507 times:
It's not the same thing.
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|You obviously haven't been paying attention. Network interoperation isn't the same as a multiprotocol messenger. With Interoperation you only need one account. With multiprotocol you still need to have an account with various different networks.
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|What will happen with Trillian as interoperability continues? Soon it will just be based upon who has the best IM client as opposed to which platform you have the most friends on.
http://thelaggard.com/blog/?p=70
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|Hopefully Trillian just goes away. They take much time between builds. Besides it's a fugly app. It really is.
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|I agree with Spyderloco. I have been a long time user of Trillian, only because I really don't like AIM, but most of my co-workers are on AIM. So instead of using the AIM client, I have been using Trillian. Trillian has served its purpose very well, but it is pretty ugly. I really like the Live Messenger client.
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|Hmm would've been nice to have this years ago so I wouldn't have had to get so many different screen names.
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|To late for it to matter much
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|Schweeeeeet. Been waiting for this. Awesome. :)
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|Too bad they're not offering the service here in Japan though. Although probably it's just that Yahoo has a way too limited share here in Japan.
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|I think that anyone who thinks that these advances are stupid and are mocking the idea are missing the point.
MSN and Yahoo! are not trying to merge. It would not be in anyone's best interest for them to merge networks.
If you are a fan of Yahoo! Messenger, then why would you want Microsoft having any role in that application? The same goes the opposite way.
With interoperability, Microsoft is promoting Yahoo's product and vice versa. This allows the best product to win and allows the competition to be based on the quality of software, not based on whose friends are on which network.
If users want to use video together, then they will venture out to download the other client.
My personal opinion is that this will benefit Yahoo! and MSN equally.
I use Yahoo! and AIM. I'm always invisible on AIM based on how many people want to chat. On Yahoo!, I enjoy their webcam functionality (I have a 3 month old son and parents overseas) and the control over allowing contacts on your list. I'm excited that I should be able to contact MSN people without having to use their client. This is good news. I do not want any Microsoft applications on my system unless I have to have them. Why? I just don't like them.
--
Here's an interesting concept though -- people with both MSN and Yahoo! accounts who have Yahoo contacts on their MSN and vice-versa who use Gaim, Miranda, or Trillian ... each of those applications will need to find a way to compensate for confusing management of these screennames ...
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|Is file transfer and direction connection/picture sharing available?
OHHHHHHHHHH...noooo...yeah thats right you still have to be on the same darn IM network to take advantage of that.
AOL has allowed contact with the ICQ network for some time now but I can't send ICQ people a damn thing.
Yeah thats sucks.
If they want to get it right then Yahoo and MS should cooperate on creating a single client which bridges together the network instead of relying on this quick-fix-to-the-current-software crap that AOL pulled with ICQ like 2 or 3 years ago and will be pulling again with Goolge Talk.
Dont get me wrong, Im a full time AIM user. Im just venting on what I think should be done...I have no friends on ICQ, but even if I did, its the point I made above that counts. Same thing for MSN. I have a few Yahoo buddies which I load up YIM for, but I don't have any MSN buddies...so I will never know the benefits of the interop.
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|Whats funny about that is, AOL & ICQ are the same company. You would think they WOULD have merged these two by now. I loved ICQ before AOL got ahold of it. Still got my old old old 6 digit number though, just to have it.
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|You should say in that post, "Within a few hours," so that it would be easier to know when this will happen.
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|Yes, I was looking all over that page for a link which wasn't there. >:(
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|It's up and running, and so far, it works.. you have to accept an invite to chat though, but that's not a bad thing.
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|It is indeed up and running. You would have to accept an invite even if you a** a contact within one messenger client anyway, so this is something people are used to I guess.
As I have both YIM and WLM I tried it with both my IDs. Funny part is how an emoticon you use for WLM changes into the one similar on YIM.
So far Audibles (YIM) and winks (WLM) don't work, as well as features like filetransfer, etc from WLM, and send file, games, photosharing, etc from YIM.
One can only hope they will imporve these things soon, would be great IMO.
PS! A nudge sent from WLM to YIM comes there as a buzz.
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|They don't work YET... more features will be added at a later time.
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