Yamigo
Encyclopedia
Yamigo is a free service, based in Finland
, that allows instant messaging
on mobile phone
s.
To use it, your phone and network must support wireless-data (e.g. GPRS) but your network operator does not need to have official support for instant messaging.
It is based on a protocol called Wireless Village
, developed by the Open Mobile Alliance
, which is a joint venture between Nokia
, Sony Ericsson
, Motorola
and many other mobile device manufacturers (over 200 in total).
Certain models of phones from these manufacturers are now available that include a chat client that can access the Yamigo network. These include (but are not limited to):
On Nokia, the chat client is accessed via the "My Presence" menu. On Sony-Ericsson, it's called "’My Friends". On Motorola, it's called "IM". The phones' chat clients are generally designed to be provider neutral, so you have to put in Yamigo's settings. Other phones need a third-party chat client that is compatible with the Yamigo network. According to the Yamigo site, you need to look for one which is "IMPS compliant presence-enabled".
Once registered, Yamigo users can use their mobile phones to text-talk with each other, and they can also chat with their buddies on Yahoo! Messenger
, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger
and ICQ
. Yamigo supports importing buddy lists from those services automatically, after sign-up with Yamigo you can put in your username and password for each of those networks, and Yamigo will retrieve your list of contacts. Alternatively, you can just be a Yamigo member, which would allow you to keep your 'mobile' instant messenger contacts separate from your 'PC' contacts.
You can connect to Yamigo via both WAP and internet. However, not all phones will connect reliably to Yamigo over WAP. So configuration could involve a bit of trial and error.
The Yamigo sign up page is where you select how frequently your phone polls the Yamigo network. Because it is a client-server protocol, sending messages to your contacts is fast, but receiving them depends on how quickly you set your phone to poll the Yamigo network. The fastest seems to be two minutes, but it is unclear how much data it uses to poll each time, which obviously has important cost implications. Another question that would be worthy of investigation is what the battery-life implication of high GPRS activity.
The service seems to have been abandoned sometime late 2005. There have been no new developments or news since the last Upgrade for Version .19 in April 2005. The administrator of the forums never answers any questions. The service is now very spotty, with complains such as:
However, consider that a kilobyte allows you to send 1024 characters, and some mobile networks have GPRS access plans that let you pay-as-you-go, per kilobyte. For example, Australian mobile network Optus has a Wireless Internet Plan which costs $A0.055 per kilobyte - just a little over half a cent for 1024 characters. Some GPRS providers charge a 'flagfall
' fee each time you connect to GPRS. This can make GPRS dramatically more expensive than it otherwise appears.
Many networks around the world also now have fixed-monthly-fee unlimited GPRS plans which makes Yamigo usage effectively free, assuming you already have the all-you-can-eat GPRS plan for another purpose.
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, that allows instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
on mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s.
To use it, your phone and network must support wireless-data (e.g. GPRS) but your network operator does not need to have official support for instant messaging.
It is based on a protocol called Wireless Village
Wireless Village
Wireless Village is a set of specifications for mobile instant messaging and presence services. It is intended to be a standard for cellphones and mobile devices to use these services across platforms....
, developed by the Open Mobile Alliance
Open Mobile Alliance
The Open Mobile Alliance is a standards body which develops open standards for the mobile phone industry.- Principles :Mission: To provide interoperable service enablers working across countries, operators and mobile terminals....
, which is a joint venture between Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...
, Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to manufacture mobile phones....
, Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
and many other mobile device manufacturers (over 200 in total).
Certain models of phones from these manufacturers are now available that include a chat client that can access the Yamigo network. These include (but are not limited to):
- Nokia 3220, 3230, 6020, 6021, 6220, 6230, 6630, 6820, 6230, 5140, 6810, 7200, 7260, 7270, 7610
- Motorola V500, V600, E398, V3 RAZR
- Sony Ericsson T637, T630, K300i, K500i, K610i, K700i, K750i, W800i, W810i, W880i, W890i, S700i, Z1010, T206, V800
- Siemens SK65
On Nokia, the chat client is accessed via the "My Presence" menu. On Sony-Ericsson, it's called "’My Friends". On Motorola, it's called "IM". The phones' chat clients are generally designed to be provider neutral, so you have to put in Yamigo's settings. Other phones need a third-party chat client that is compatible with the Yamigo network. According to the Yamigo site, you need to look for one which is "IMPS compliant presence-enabled".
Once registered, Yamigo users can use their mobile phones to text-talk with each other, and they can also chat with their buddies on Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger is an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!...
, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. It was released by AOL in May 1997...
and ICQ
ICQ
ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase "I seek you"...
. Yamigo supports importing buddy lists from those services automatically, after sign-up with Yamigo you can put in your username and password for each of those networks, and Yamigo will retrieve your list of contacts. Alternatively, you can just be a Yamigo member, which would allow you to keep your 'mobile' instant messenger contacts separate from your 'PC' contacts.
You can connect to Yamigo via both WAP and internet. However, not all phones will connect reliably to Yamigo over WAP. So configuration could involve a bit of trial and error.
The Yamigo sign up page is where you select how frequently your phone polls the Yamigo network. Because it is a client-server protocol, sending messages to your contacts is fast, but receiving them depends on how quickly you set your phone to poll the Yamigo network. The fastest seems to be two minutes, but it is unclear how much data it uses to poll each time, which obviously has important cost implications. Another question that would be worthy of investigation is what the battery-life implication of high GPRS activity.
The service seems to have been abandoned sometime late 2005. There have been no new developments or news since the last Upgrade for Version .19 in April 2005. The administrator of the forums never answers any questions. The service is now very spotty, with complains such as:
- users that are online being shown as offline;
- no messages being delivered to the phone.
Cheaper than using SMS
The big benefit of using a service like Yamigo is that it allows you to avoid the higher costs of using SMS to chat with people. For example, most mobile networks in Australia charge about $A0.25 per SMS ($US0.18) per SMS. Each SMS allows you to send 160 characters.However, consider that a kilobyte allows you to send 1024 characters, and some mobile networks have GPRS access plans that let you pay-as-you-go, per kilobyte. For example, Australian mobile network Optus has a Wireless Internet Plan which costs $A0.055 per kilobyte - just a little over half a cent for 1024 characters. Some GPRS providers charge a 'flagfall
Flagfall
Flagfall or flag fall is common Australian expression for a fixed start fee, especially in the haulage and railroad industry. From the Australia mobile phone industry, the expression has recently begun to spread to other English language countries, as business jargon for an initial fixed fee for...
' fee each time you connect to GPRS. This can make GPRS dramatically more expensive than it otherwise appears.
Many networks around the world also now have fixed-monthly-fee unlimited GPRS plans which makes Yamigo usage effectively free, assuming you already have the all-you-can-eat GPRS plan for another purpose.
A warning to Motorola phone users
Yamigo warns Motorola users that data usage is 10 times higher than on Nokia and Sony-Ericsson. From their website:-
- "We would like to stress the fact that we see a benefit in using some chat clients over others. For example, most of the existing Nokia and Ericsson phones use a compressed version of the data exchange protocol, known as WBXMLWBXMLWAP Binary XML is a binary representation of XML. It was developed by the WAP Forum and is now maintained by the Open Mobile Alliance as a standard to allow XML documents to be transmitted in a compact manner over mobile networks and proposed as an addition to the World Wide Web Consortium's...
, while Motorola chat clients use plain XMLXMLExtensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
. Motorola generate data transfers ten times higher than Nokia and Sony-Ericsson phones."
- "We would like to stress the fact that we see a benefit in using some chat clients over others. For example, most of the existing Nokia and Ericsson phones use a compressed version of the data exchange protocol, known as WBXML