Back in my old Treo days, I was able to communicate with directly with Yahoo Messenger by way of SMS — there were special short codes for all my correspondents, etc.
Problem is, those don’t seem to work from SMS with my Blackberry. Nor does the spiffy RIM Blackberry Yahoo client work (it explicitly is not currently supported on AT&T/Cingular networks). There is a web-based client — but I really don’t want to be hanging out in the browser on my phone.
Of the SMS/Text Messaging-based stuff, I can find not a word on the US Yahoo sites. It’s as if the technology was removed coincident to my getting the BB. I do find stuff on Yahoo sites elsewhere in the world, but the codes, don’t seem to work.
Now, on the other hand, the Google Talk client works like a champ — autoconnects just fine, receives messages integrated into the Blackberry’s messaging system, etc. It’s super-spiffy.
Okay, I think I got it working — though the SMS code prefix changed with my new phone (though my number stayed the same with the BB and I’m still on Cingular-at&t, I’m actually on the native at&t network, not the old AT&T mMode network — that’s probably causing me some problems).
Some of the commands aren’t working, but it looks like I should now receive SMS messages. I was able get what I needed through the YIM client, rather than anywhere in the YIM documentation. Weird and annoying.
Not as nice as the seamless Google client, but it works.