Yahoo Messenger encroaches on Facebook turf

At left, Yahoo's Pingbox application on my Facebook page. At right, the resulting instant message chat through Yahoo Messenger. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--Facebook has a Web-based instant-messaging application, but Yahoo wants to one-up the social networking site with an application called Pingbox that lets Facebook users chat with widely used Yahoo Messenger technology instead.

In 2008, Yahoo released a version of Pingbox that would let people put an IM widget on their pages at Friendster, Xanga, hi5, LiveJournal, MySpace, and Google's Blogger sites. It was harder work to build the Pingbox application for Facebook but now that's available too.

With Pingbox set up, anyone who visits your Facebook page sees a chat window that invites them to send a message. Doing so initiates a chat through Yahoo Messenger--but you have to be using Messenger version 8.1 or the current 9.0.

Facebook has its own instant-messaging service, but it doesn't launch a pop-up window or desktop notification when somebody sends a message, so it's not obvious when people use it.

"We realized you could have Facebook sitting in a tab all day long and you'll never notice whether they IM you," Samir Mehta, senior product messenger on Yahoo Messenger Team, said in an interview at Yahoo's headquarters here.

Samir Mehta

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

My testing of Pingbox showed it works as advertised. Setting it up was easy enough, and after doing so a "facebook pingbox" group appeared in my Yahoo Messenger contacts list. When initiating a chat, Pingbox asked me to identify myself, and that username appeared in the Pingbox group on Yahoo Messenger.

There is a limitation to the Facebook application compared with the other versions, though. Because Facebook doesn't run Flash applications automatically, visitors to the must manually click the application to start it.

One interesting element of Pingbox is that messages can only be seen in Yahoo Messenger, not other services such as Digsby, Meebo, Trillian, or Pidgin. "We don't interoperate with third parties. You have to be using one of our clients," Mehta said.

That's a drag for those of us who have to reckon with multiple non-interoperable instant messaging networks. But it probably makes sense for Yahoo as it tries to wire its Internet properties together socially. Yahoo Messenger is one key communications hub, and it's a component of the Yahoo Open Strategy.

The setup process requires you to authenticate yourself on Yahoo's network. After that, it lets you set a color scheme and welcome message, then offers a choice of a smaller or larger version for your Facebook page. The trickiest part: after you save your settings, be sure to actually activate it by clicking the button in the yellow bar at the top of the screen labeled "Add Yahoo Messenger Pingbox to your profile."

[outlaw26r]

Adium for Mac's works pretty much the same way. They just came out with an update that improved the functionality of the whole IM client a lot better. Glad to see they are making a solution for PC users as well. Guess Facebook is the only one who loses out of this deal. I have a lot of conversations without ever open their site up. Of course its not all bad for them because it keeps me using their service and not go back to myspace.

[Viceroyofllg]

I agree with you about PC users having an outlet. I've been using Adium for a while (having switched over to Mac's just recently) and I've often wondered if such a service would eventually surface. And, all in all, the end result is that you still have to log into the Facebook site, the only difference is the remote access; Facebook gets to keep its stats on user log-in, and you don't have to go through the hassle of refreshing your content when all you want to do is catch someone who isn't logged onto another instant message service. Well played, Yahoo.

[GreatSK]

Just for those who care, there is of course a facebook plugin available for pidgin as well, I believe I used this one http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-facebookchat/

[sullivanjc]

We don't interoperate with third parties. You have to be using one of our clients," Mehta said.

*That's* why I don't use theirs....

[loose_screw]

Agreed.

[JCPayne]

Yahoo and Windows have interoperability so this means Microsoft gets a free ride too no????

[kerryritz]

Palringo solves many of the interoperability problems on both the desktop AND mobile. So you can easly maintain your chat sessions with any of the major IM networks plus facebook whether you're on a PC, Mac or any major mobile platform (and this includes windows mobile, symbian, java, iPhone, blackberry, android (coming). So there is no need to worry about whether yahoo talks to google or whether facebook will work with MSN. Palringo will let you communicate with all of these networks in one single, unified interface. And, by the way, we have now integrated location into the application (much better than Google Latitude, i can say!!).
check it out: www.palringo.com

best regards
kerry ritz
Palringo

[junovo]

Palringo does not work with Pingbox as I tried and it will not send a message back.
Regards
Rob