New Yahoo! Messenger Protocol Changes?

[tansqrx 0]

I first picked this up on Big Blue Ball in their newsletter (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/).

As of April 2nd, 2007, we will no longer offer customer support for Yahoo! Messenger 7.0/7.5. We recommend that you upgrade to the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger. We will keep these help pages available online should you continue to use this version and have basic questions that these pages can answer.

The administrators of Big Blue Ball speculate that this may mean another protocol change. I tend to disagree. The 8.x series of clients all use the same YMSG protocol as their predecessors. They may perhaps enforce the latest version of the protocol (15 vs. 12) but I donât think this will make a great deal of difference as the authentication is identical. My guess is they are trying to make the Messenger Plug-Ins standard. Apparently a lot of developers and advertisers are writing plug-ins for Messenger and the support just isnât there in earlier versions. Bottom line, I think it is about money from advertising not protocol changes.

[ethergeek 0]

This is standard operating procedure...it's alot easier to not support legacy versions of a product from a training standpoint, especially if you're training your support team to support old versions of something that can be downloaded and upgraded for free.Seems like it should be common sense to update a program that's having problems before calling support, but I may just be too much of a geek to understand why people don't do this...

[turbopowerdmaxsteel 0]

Whatever the motives are, major protocol changes would render many third party tools (including my Pika Bot )useless. Not that we've got the right to be complaining; after all, its their game and their rules.But, I sincerely doubt that it will happen. They are more concerened on the advertising part as you mention. Engaging work on the protocol wouldn't be ideal for them. However, I do think that they should do something for the bot problem. Its hard to find real people in chat rooms these days. On an average there are 2-4 bots residing in every room, which spam the chat room based on a timer circuit. Then there are the cycler bots, which keep on moving across rooms & posting their advertisements. I've always wanted bots to be able to replicate human chit chat with smart answers. Yet, these days, they are primarily used for no good advertisements.

[tansqrx 0]

From what I have seen the chats are suffering from more than just bots. For the past several months it has taken forever to get into the rooms, may times several minutes. This is the same for all clients, not just Messenger. I am starting to wonder if Yahoo! is either abandoning chat all together or getting ready for another update. I remember the last time there was a chat update the servers were slow to respond and all sorts of problems popped up. BTW. Turbo you need to stop by my forums more often, I’m starting to miss you, lol.

[turbopowerdmaxsteel 0]

From what I have seen the chats are suffering from more than just bots. For the past several months it has taken forever to get into the rooms, may times several minutes. This is the same for all clients, not just Messenger. I am starting to wonder if Yahoo! is either abandoning chat all together or getting ready for another update. I remember the last time there was a chat update the servers were slow to respond and all sorts of problems popped up.

It all seems pretty logical. But, I have a feeling that its all because they want to delay the room cycler bots.

BTW. Turbo you need to stop by my forums more often, Iâm starting to miss you, lol

OK, I'll drop by. I was kind of concentrating on other areas, more importantly, the new plugin architecture for Pika Bot.