Yahoo is killing support for a popular Gmail plug-in from Xoopit, a startup it acquired in July. An email was sent out today to Xoopit users on Gmail tited, “Xoopit for Gmail is closing. Here’s the info you’ll need.” It details different ways users can export their files, photos, videos, and other attachments which may be stored on the service. From the email:
We will be officially turning off Xoopit for Gmail on November 13, 2009, to focus our efforts on making My Photos for Yahoo! Mail an amazing product and bring those features to all Yahoo! Mail users. Given our focus, we decided we cannot adequately support the Xoopit for Gmail product and give you a great experience in the future. Here are some details to guide you through this transition.
Xoopit is a handy email plug-in that works with both Gmail and Yahoo Mail, where it powers the My Photos feature. In Gmail, it creates a strip across the top which shows you images of all recent attachments, making it possible to visually scan email for their contents instead of by subject lines. You can also click on the Xoopit thumbnail strip so that it takes over the whole screen with a grid of photos, images,videos, and docs.
Back in July when Yahoo bought Xoopit, we wondered why Google didn’t buy it instead. Now at least we know why Yahoo bought it—to take it away from Google (and it’ also a really cool feature). Yahoo certainly has the resources to keep supporting the Gmail plug-in, which is very popular Shutting off support is a small gesture, but it shows that Yahoo is starting to play for keeps. And it doesn’t want to share its toys with Google, despite all of that talk about how open it is.
“Shutting off support is a small gesture, but it shows that Yahoo is starting to play for keeps.”
I’d rephrase the above to read: Shutting off support is a small gesture, but it shows that Yahoo is fucking clueless and screws users. Srsly, like this hurts Google?!
They just did Google a favor.
1. Google can just implement the same stuff without seeming like a ‘competitor’ to Xoopit users.
2. Or someone will open source a plugin for browsing media attachments if it hasn’t been done already.
It seems like a bad business to begin with, unless the specific goal was to be acquired — by an email provider that wants to save development time.
Seems like it would be trivial for gmail to develop the feature in house as a labs project if it really gives a shit.
If there is enough demand, someone else will surely develop it for gmail. Seems like a silly move from yahoos part. Severely limiting the gmail version or only adding new features from now on to yahoo would have been much smarter. At least then you can convert some users off of gmail to yahoo ( maybe? )
Xoopit will be sorely missed. I just used it a couple of weeks ago because my dad needed to find a picture he sent me a couple of years ago.
Sure, I know how to do advance searches within Gmail, but I am sure you all agree that it’s way easier to just browse through all the images in thumbnail view/
um. restructure your sentence. should be: I will sorely miss Xoopit. Others probably don’t feel the same way you do. I had it for months now and NEVER use it.
If one person sorely misses Xoopit, that still qualifies the sentence, “Xoopit will be sorely missed.” Also, there’s a fairly good chance that more than one Xoopit user will “sorely miss” it.
…just saying.
Here’s to Yahoo hot-lunching all over users yet again, minus the Saran Wrap.
Why did you guys get rid of that 1st comment?? Yahoo is totally screwing users. Let the commenter comment.
Geez.
what’s the record for the fastest acquisition-to-deadpool?
@brendan
Its NOT dead-pool. It is removing support for a ‘feature’ in their COMPETITORS website. Its like, if Google bought some company that had a search feature for Yahoo! Search, why will they invest to keep it running?
Anurag,
I don’t know how to tell you this, but Google already has products that support their competitors, including Yahoo. Google Chrome comes to mind. What if Google decides to block Yahoo Mail from Chrome? Forget just the chrome browser. In the next few years, Google’s Chrome is poised to become a prime OS on Netbooks. Should Google block Yahoo from its OS? For that matter, should Microsoft, another Yahoo competitor shut off access to Yahoo from Windows or Internet Explorer?
No, and it won’t. Google has ensured that it won’t by investing in open source technologies. The Chrome browser (disclaimer: I’m a Firefox fan and I wish Google would stop with those annoying Chrome TV ads) and the Chrome OS are both open source technologies that Google is helping make better.
Yfan,
Do you think ‘blocking’ a site in a browser compares to ‘not investing’ extra money to keep a feature keep running on a competitor site?
HTML, Javascript and the like are widely accepted standards for internet and a browser has to comply with them, so SUPPORTING Yahoo! mail on Chrome isn’t a SEPARATE INVESTMENT, it just comes with the package.
Keeping Xoopit running for gmail might have issues, including but not limited to, keeping a generic version and a version which is more deeply integrated with Yahoo! services.
And don’t make me count the number of open source technologies Yahoo! supports – Hadoop, Pig, YUI, Oozie, and many many more.
And if you didn’t know, YUI is a technology even iGoogle uses, and Yahoo! hasn’t BLOCKED Google from using it.
So do your research before you write in here.
maybe you should do *your* research. YUI is BSD licensed. yahoo CAN’T stop anyone from using it. at best, they can only relicense future versions
Anurag,
No one is saying that Yahoo has to “keep investing” in Xoopit for Gmail. I am simply saying that it should not shut down the support for the current version as is. It shouldn’t be removing Gmail related access from the Xoopit servers. They do not need to continue developing it – just leave the Xoopit for Gmail development where it is right now. Or release that part of it to the open source community, and they will take care of it for further development. No one is asking for additional investment from Yahoo into Xoopit from Gmail, only that they not *block* its access to Gmail users. Which is, yes, the same as Google *blocking* access to Yahoo on Chrome (the browser and the OS) and Android. Hell, it’s the same as if Google decided to *block* Yahoo and Yahoo hosting hosted sites from its search engine.
Anurag,
PS, also, as for “what if it hadn’t” is not a relevant question here with respect to YUI. It is released under BSD license not because Yahoo felt benevolent about it, it’s because it used contributions and codes from the open developer and BSD communities. So I doubt they had the choice not to release it under an open license. Regardless of the circumstances, however, it is what it is. The point is, at this moment, Yahoo lacks the authority to block iGoogle form using YUI, but Google does not lack the authority to block Yahoo (and Yahoo Hosting) contents from its search results.
If Google blocks Y! Mail on Chrome, I will stop using Chrome.
For some reason, I can’t reply to whoop dedo, but anyways, here goes….
Yahoo! built YUI and released it under BSD license. What if it hadn’t? Duh!
Once again; Google 1, Yahoo 0
gosh.. those guys just haven’t learned.
yahoo is playing the same dumb moves that microsoft does… not sharing, closes, taking away rather then adding.
And then this vulgar chick bartz wonders why the geeks don’t like yahoo (although quite frankly everyone else just hasn’t tried anything else).
so yahoo is taking its ball home and ending the playground game early . poor sportsmanship by yahoo
There is already a startup in stealth mode that will pick up where Xoopit left off.
I wonder if Techcrunch has talked to them yet. Why are they not being covered?
What are they called?
charleybravo
Charlie, nice subtly hint to TechCrunch to cover your “stealth” startup that noone cares about.
Maybe the FCC can open an investigation as to why Yahoo! is blocking its content from GMail users… Seems like they’re into that sort of thing these days.
537000 emails?!
Such a dumb move of Yahoo, again
Can’t believe Yahoo keep doing this, yeah we know your management is incompetent and lack of vision but please please stop keep reminding us users.
It’s like, oh my gosh that xoopit feature is so hard to develop, it will take years for google to figure out…. duh .. let the, dah, gmail user suffer, muhahaha….
pisses me off.. bastards.. I hope xoopit founders get massive diarrhea, I feel lied too.. saying they can’t support both… seriously when did this become the world of liars and sissies… just say you hate google and don’t want to support it.. don’t give me this crap you can’t support both… yahoo you are wrong if you think xoopit is enough of a reason t5o switch.. people like me will just do videos on youtube ripping you over and over again cause you are nothing but lying bastards.. can’;t believe I use to be a fan of you sellouts at xoopit.. sellouts.
Why does everyone here chastise Yahoo! for not subsidising Google with a free extension? People seriously need to reconsider their Mountain View infatuation.
LOL, you are funny. There’s nothing about MV infatuation.
Should Xoopit support hotmail before and Yahoo kill it, people think it is a bad move equally. Does that make everyone have Seattle (or Redmond rather) infatuation ? Bad move is a bad move, no matter it’s direction.
nah, people here just don’t run real businesses. They bitch and moan on Techcrunch and therefore have zero understanding of what keeping this alive for both platforms would entail.
Everyone says yahoo should focus – kinda looks like that to me.
I find it funny that people bash yahoo about disconnecting xoopit from gmail, but everyone seems okay with G killing the export tool from facebook
You know, there is something refreshing about the way Google does business over many of it’s competitors.
One thing which I have noticed during the recent Google Wave buzz, is that they still possess the original founding ethos of the Internet… free and open communication. They acknowledge the existence of it’s competitors, rather than trying to act like they don’t exist. Yahoo appears to be more about making profit first than enhancing use of the Internet. Sure businesses have to make money, but was the Internet ever really founded with that money making intention in mind? I don’t think so. Google are doing it right when it comes to the end user.
Your still drinking the Google cool-aid even after they block Orkut users from downloading their data, trample all over publishes’ rights, and keep their ad systems tightly closed.
1:0 for Yahoo
Smart step. Why should Yahoo want to keep Gmail support? Doesn’t make any sense.
All the people who compare Google to Yahoo: Yahoo is not a search engine but a web portal with many services. They need users on THEIR page.
If Yahoo would be very smart, they’d develop a real working extension (I know of AdBlock+ for Chrome) to block Google Ads HAHAHA
I agree. Yahoo should go ahead and develop a product to block Google ads. Then Google can retaliate by purging their search results of any Yahoo or Yahoo Hosting hosted content. How’s that? How would Yahoo like its content to be purged from 80% of the world’s searches?
LOL, are you serious? Yahoo! would have to be incredibly stupid to build a plugin that blocks only Google ads. That’s probably illegal. (It’d be even worse if they replaced the ads with their own.) Adblock Plus blocks every ad, at least.
I’m so glad I switched completely from Yahoo to Gmail. If only Flickr didn’t rely on them…
Google does the exact same thing. At least Yahoo bought the feature, whereas Google actually no longer allows users to extract their own data from Orkut to block Facebook from capturing their marketshare in India.
They fixed this “bug”. You should be able to export your Orkut data now.
What, its not a MG post? I really like you Erick, don’t do this. Please.
Smacks of desperation on Yahoo’s part..
A very sad day for Xoopit users on gmail. I can’t remember the last time I have been so sad about losing a service. This will surely detract from my gmail experiences.
Yahoo and Microsoft are riding in same boat. So this is a nice move.
Hmm maybe we should build this functionality into Inbox2. Would actually be quite easy for us todo. But then again… feature creep
“tited” – how about a quick spell check before posting? it may help TC become a more legit news source.
pick up any legit dead tree newspaper today. i guarantee you’ll find a spelling mistake within the first 2 pages.
I found nothing to say hearing your comments …. Thanks for the conversation
We recently announced an express registration process for Xoopit and other Gmail users who wish to create docuvana accounts. Docuvana is a free service that allows users to store, view, search and share the attachments in all of their email accounts through a unified web interface. It does most of what Xoopit does but with some additional unique features. We are in public beta and welcome anyone to try out the service and let us know what you think.
Does anybody knows a substitute for Xoopit? Especially when using in Gmail?