★ Yahoo! Messenger will forever remain a mystery
If I tell you “Yahoo! Messenger”. Of course you’d say : Yahoo’s instant messenger software. Right ? Well I’d tell you other things…
1)- The way the Messenger works, in its different forms, is utterly weird to me. People I add on the desktop client are different from those I add via Yahoo! Mail Messenger. There does not seem to be a clean synchronization. When asking someone at Yahoo! about this a while ago I got this reply :
Funny, we were just talking about this yesterday. It turns out I didn’t even know how this works. So, to explain:
- The Address Book stores private info you know about other people. We allow you to store a Messenger ID for people you know without inviting them to be Messenger Buddies.
- The Messenger Buddy list is a separate list of people who you have invited to be Messenger Buddies. This is NOT synced with the Address Book (but often is coincidentally in sync).
- Almost all Messenger clients get your Buddy List first, then fills it in with Address Book data. Mail, in contrast, gets your Address Book data first and fills it in with Messenger data (online status).
IMHO Mail should act the same as other Messenger clients and get your buddy list first. This is being reviewed but not do not expect a change in the near future.
The whole thing is really confusing. Then add to this the synchronization of Windows Live contacts and your brain will start warming up for good, i’m telling you.
2) I recently added a Yahoo! Pingbox on this website. This enables visitors to chat with me when I’m available online. Well so they say. It seems my online status is properly recognized when :
- I’m logged in the desktop client.
- i’m logged in the web messenger located at web.im.
However, my status will forever remain offline on Pingbox even if I am logged in :
- Yahoo Mail Messenger
- Yahoo Messenger Mobile on iPhone
Yet, as if it were not complex enough, I cannot be logged both in the desktop client and Yahoo! Mail. Not can I have the Messenger app running on the iPhone and be logged in elsewhere. In short only one connection is allowed.
So why is it that my online presence is properly recognized between those 4 types of clients whenever I’m switching from one to another but only two of them are supported by Pingbox ?
I’m telling you. A mystery.
I really wish Yahoo! would do something about all this and come up with something as simple and unified as Gtalk. And BTW, if they could add Jabber support it’d be great. After all, Messenger is supposed to be one of the few remaining products the company wants to focus on, alongside with Mail.
Let’s unveil the mystery once for all :)
