Russian Google Competitor Embraces Open Source Messaging

rm writes "Internet search and mail provider Yandex, which many view to be Google's main competitor in Russia, has recently added an instant messaging capability to its mail notifier application Ya.Online. As it turns out, the IM service is based on the open XMPP protocol, with connectivity to all other public Jabber servers available from day one. MacOS X and GNU/Linux versions of the app were also released (complete with sources under the GPL) and are determined to be based on the Psi IM client. Yandex looks to be a firm believer in open-source, also running a mirror site for FOSS and actively promoting its branded version of Firefox. Here's hoping that its affair with XMPP will help eliminate ICQ's enormous foothold in Russia."

Hmmm

[willyhill]

Looking at that disaster of a front page, I'd say these guys are competing with Yahoo, not Google.

Re:Missing info

[Z80xxc!]

True. Also, Facebook claims that it will be implementing XMPP eventually. That would bring millions of users an open standard chat protocol. And hopefully make currently-buggy facebook chat actually work.

One reason I like Gtalk over Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, etc. is that it can talk to others not using Gtalk as long as they have some sort of XMPP-compatible chat client and an XMPP account with someone somewhere.

Re:Missing info

[t0tAl_mElTd0wN]

I've worked with XMPP, and despite having it's own organization devoted to developing the standard, it suffers from a lot of issues regarding actual standardization. Most of these issues are in the form of deprecated extensions. I think that will be the biggest hurdle for XMPP - yay standardization and open source and all that, but when old clients do things in a deprecated way and new clients do things the right way and don't bother with the deprecated features (because they're deprecated) then you start having some issues. Just look at all the extensions and tell me that this is a viable protocol for interoperability: http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/ [xmpp.org]

Re:Hmmm

[Jerf]

Cultures vary surprisingly widely on what constitutes "good design". Many Asian cultures, for instance, all but require you to have a very busy page.

In a way, I'm surprised at how some of it turns out. If you came up to me and asked me which of the "East" or "West" would prefer Google to Yahoo, I'd have picked East to prefer the Google aesthetic and West to prefer the Yahoo approach, but I would be wrong. (Very, very broadly speaking. I am aware I am generalizing, this is a Slashdot comment, not a sociology PhD thesis. Please don't cite "a counterexample" at me and think it proves anything.)

Re:Gchat

[Phlegethon_River]

Right, but GoogleTalk is not Open Source, see: http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en [google.com]

And GoogleTalk isn't available for GNU/Linux.

And Google doesn't host a mirror of OSS projects (except GoogleCode, which is different).

Anything else?

Re:Gchat

[Phlegethon_River]

That is of course true, but that doesn't mean that Google's implementation is anywhere near as open as Yandex.

Google: Open Protocol, Closed Client
Yandex: Open Protocol, Open Client

Looks like Yandex wins.

Re:Missing info

[BitZtream]

I agree. The summary is bunk. I setup an XMPP federation for the company I work for, and about 5 minutes after the first server was up and running, my client was communicating with a Google employee via xmpp to their GTalk client.

Its worked great and I encourage anyone who wants to communicate with me via IM to use GTalk if they do not have any other XMPP alternative.

This IS the way to go (currently) for instant messaging. Its like SMTP for ANY type of message, not just text, with some state and status information thrown in for good measure.

Re:Missing info

[aliquis]

Gtalk don't do video, it does audio, however there are only a very limited amount of clients which supports the audio part. For instance Pidgin and Adium don't*.

I appologise if I missread/missunderstood if you where talking about running a server by oneself.

* Sure it was nice to see atleast miranda there, but well, until most / enough clients support it it won't help much and voice isn't enough, most people use skype/teamspeak/ventrilo for voice only anyway

But webcam/voip have always been of very low priority by the developers of pidgin/libpurple and therefor adium is lacking to (since it use their libs.)

Re:Missing info

[i.of.the.storm]

This summer there was a Summer of Code project for Voice/Video and I think the guy made pretty good progress, but I think right now if you grab the VV branch from monotone and are able to compile it you will only be able to talk to people who are also using Pidgin. But at least it's a start, and maybe next summer someone will finish the job, if the developers aren't able to finish it or don't want to (I suspect more of the latter, but I'm OK with it since the only person I would talk to on google talk is my annoying cousin).

There isn't a monopoly at Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

As it turns out, the IM service is based on the open XMPP protocol

The summary makes it sound like this is some major advantage over Google. GTalk is also based on XMPP.

But hey, Slashdot needs to pay the bills, and this makes a great Slashvertisment for Yandex.

And THAT was the part you found odd in the summary? I was personally boggled by the "Many view Yandex as Google's main competitor in russia" part.

Oh really? Do they? Maybe that has something to do with the fact that in Russia, Yandex beats Google by a large margin. Yandex has about 40% share while google.ru about 20% share. Google isn't the worst competitor to Yandex, there.

Technically, it is still correct to say that, just like it would be correct to say "Many view google to be Yahoo's main competitor" but it gives wrong image.

Why does this matter? Well, the difference there is big. Everywhere else, some search engine dominates. Hell, in Finland, google.fi has over 90% share. In USA, Google is higher than ever. In china, Baidu beats the crap out of everything else. But in Russia... The "monopoly" one has only 40% share. They all need to actually constantly improve their services to win others.