Posted by raincontreras in Tech News, The Internet | 5 Comments
Add Yahoo! Contacts to Windows Live Messenger, and Vice-versa
It’s been in the news for some time, this interoperability deal between the messenger clients of Microsoft and Yahoo!, but here’s what happened today:
With Windows Live™ Messenger, you can talk to your Yahoo! contacts. Forget needing multiple accounts to talk to all your friends—you’ll be able to see when they’re online and communicate with them from one place. Try sending and receiving messages while you appear to be offline. And if you really are offline, your contacts can still send you messages—you’ll get them next time you log in.
First things first, you have to get in the Windows Live Messenger program. Download the client, and you’re good to go.
Funny thing is, I can’t get it to work at all. The Yahoo! contacts are always offline, and my offline messages give errors. Updates to follow, if there will be any developments on my issue.
UPDATE: Thanks for the tip Migs. The culprit really is that my Yahoo! IM account is not registered yet for the service. Here’s where I did/you do that. I do still have some issues with Windows Live Messenger messages not going through the Yahoo! protocol, but YM-to-MSN messaging is fine.
Oh, and here’s Yahoo!’s blurb:
From the new Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, you can see when your Windows Live™ (MSN) Messenger contacts are online and send them instant messages. Keep all your friends in one place and IM with them anytime, right from Yahoo! Messenger.
Two points:
First, there should’ve been an easier way to export-import contacts from one IM client to the other, instead of adding one username at a time. Second, I’m not sure how this affects third-party, multi-protocol clients like Gaim and Trillian. We’ll soon see, I hope.
Related posts:
- Windows Live 8 Years Ago
- Can’t Wait For The New Yahoo Mail Release?
- Microsoft Live
- Your IM client of choice
- Try the new Yahoo!Mail beta
Perhaps the Y!M client also needs to be the one that supports Windows Live Messenger. In my case, I upgraded both on my desktop and the two can now send to each other.
Now if only I had more Windows contacts..
Add me up?
lol j/k.
It seems to only work on the official clients of Yahoo and Windows Live. I logged onto YM through meebo and Live Messenger knows that I’m online on YM. However, the messages don’t get through.
Also, the stealth settings of YM doesn’t work with Live Messenger. I still get to see my YM id online even if it is on invisible mode.
There are still kinks to be worked out but this is a welcome development in the instant messaging space.
for beta or stable version?
WLM Beta and YM Beta, both needs to be updated to the interoperability beta versions for it to work.
They said they are going to refine it more and add other functionalities like file sharing, avatar support, stealth mode, etc, as the beta goes forward.
^_^
I posted a short graphical how-to at my blog
( http://gameshogun.ws/index.php/Tech/2006/07/14/windows_live_messenger_and_yahoo_messeng )