Fabbrication

Yahoo! is making a compelling case for ditching their instant messaging service. Their recent version not only has advertising you cannot hide, it blocks your instant messages if they contain links to competitors' sites.

The Advertisements, The Censoring

I was talking to my Dad this evening on Yahoo! Messenger. I tried to send him a URL, and he never got it. We experimented a little and found out that Yahoo was blocking URLs for the Google Video and YouTube sites. If you replaced the "google" or "youtube" with "yahoo", the message would be sent fine.

I've been a big fan of Yahoo! services since the late 90's. I've stuck with Yahoo Messenger over the years, resisting moving to AIM or other services. This is about to change.

The latest version of Yahoo! Messenger has an advertisement pane which you cannot hide (as far as I know). This is a big disappointment. Are my eyeballs on Yahoo's ads and my $10/year for Mail Plus not valuable enough? Now they have to force me to look at ads on my desktop? I didn't mind so much at home, but I also use instant messaging at work (for technical discussions, for example).

What is worse than the compulsory ads, however, is the fact that Yahoo is censoring my instant messages. Any message I send with a link to Google Video or YouTube is simply dropped (we tested this numerous times). This is unacceptable. Yahoo should fire whoever is responsible for these poor decisions.

Keep reading for screen shots of censored messages, along with my suggestions for replacing Yahoo Messenger.

While I can't claim that "Monkey Ninja" is as well-known as Lady Punch, it is a very entertaining little video. The clip shows an orangutan (I believe) practicing karate with a human trainer. Click on the image to view it:



Whereas Ladypunch made me feel guilty for witnessing such a violent act, Monkey Ninja fills me with warm, happy thoughts. If this ape can do a spin kick with a smile on his face, it must be true that one can do whatever they set their mind to.