Yahoo Purchases Konfabulator

NerdyPunk2ML writes "Macworld news has an article about Yahoo's acquisition of Konfabulator, which will be announced Monday. Yahoo company executives said they will be giving Konfabulator away for free, completely doing away with the US$19.95 currently charged for the product. The reason they purchased Konfabulator was they wanted an easy way to open up its APIs to the developer community and allow them easy access to the information on the Yahoo web site." From the article: "The acquisition of Konfabulator may not be the last Mac compatible product users see from Yahoo! While Schneider wasn't specific, he did say that there was interest in the Mac. 'There is a move at Yahoo! -- in addition to Konfabulator -- to move more onto the Mac,' said Schneider. 'We want to make sure we find a way to be more cross platform.'"

Great news for Yahoo users.

[spooje]

This is great news for Yahoo lovers. Konfabulator was a super easy for non-programmers to make great little apps for the Mac. I'd love to to see what these things can do if you're able to hook them into the full range of Yahoo information/services.

I wonder if this is at the urging of Yahoo Japan? Here Yahoo is the most popular portal and search engine. I've heard Mac sales, not including the iPod, are way up so maybe there's some pressure to make things more cross platform?

Good press begins with the Mac

[aftk2]

While Schneider wasn't specific, he did say that there was interest in the Mac. 'There is a move at Yahoo! -- in addition to Konfabulator -- to move more onto the Mac,' said Schneider. '

I don't find this surprising. Lately, it seems that Yahoo has been getting some of the positive internet buzz that used to be reserved solely for Google. I imagine that releasing products specifically for Mac users is aimed at garnering similar buzz.

While Macs have a relatively small share of the market, they are, however, well represented among popular bloggers, technorati (ugh) and the mavens of the web: inform or impress these folks, and you will begin to inform and impress the rest of the web. This is a move to grab mindshare.

Clutter

[TheStonepedo]

I can't see the purpose of a weather function on the desktop or perhaps a news ticker. All of the clutter of widgets cannot be worth the slight gain in functionality. A well-organized homepage with links/bookmarks should do the trick. A click or two to launch and use a browser are worth saving desktop real estate on a low-res (1024x768) LCD like mine.

Re:Cheap buy?

[Ilgaz]

Well it was there all this time and code is so mature that there are Tiger owners buying it.

If I liked things like Dashboard, I'd go for Konfabulator too.

They went win32 in weeks after Apple included same functionality with the OS.

Also don't forget one thing. We, geeks use latest and greatest OS when it ships but many people currently run 10.3 and even 10.2.8. It can run on them.

Well I call this "Happy ending". I don't have spesific "hate" against Apple as zealots assume, I am an Apple user myself. Just I think they should make them a favor, not money or something, credit or a name mention.

Just seek how EA (electronic arts) was founded, you will be surprised.

This is happy ending I think. Everyone is happy including licensed customers of Konf.

ps: For people jumping and saying "They didn't invent it!' etc, I was running Active Desktop at IE 4 times on win32

Re:Cheap buy?

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

Come on now, who can resist a product named.

Konfabulatorahoo!

This makes me happy, since I have been very unhappy with apples implementation. Many widgets such as iTunes widgets and weather widgets are pretty worthless when they don't say up all the time. Why bring up Dashboard to then get the itunes widget to click "next" when you could just click on itunes. Konfabulator had is right with widgets being able to stay on the desktop all the time.

Yahoo! is the greatest

[CarbonBasedSoda]

Honestely... name another service with so much free stuff (that's actually useful). There's email, fantasy sports, chat, IM, photo storage, stocks, streaming stocks for $10 a month, and the list goes on and on. Konfabulator is awesome, if MicroSoft had released it, it would cost $69.95 in the form of an OS update. Praise Yahoo!!

Re:Konfabulator ??

[QuantumG]

How are you supposed to figure out if you want to RTFA or not if the summary doesn't contain a description of what the hell it is TFA is talking about. The "editors" are supposed to reject shit summaries like this one.

looks like the semantic web is taking off

[mstone]

While I don't care much about Konfabulator per se, it's interesting to see how popular non-browser, web-based mini-apps are becoming. Looks like the first little frothy bit on the wave of the semantic web has arrived. It'll be interesting to see if this ends up generating as much buzz as the last few Next Big Things.

It certainly has the potential to. It's a platform-independent application framework, just like Java-on-the-browser was supposed to be, but this iteration is free from the one-size-fits-all constraints that browser-based development imposed (plus, widgets don't have to be stateless). In fact, this has all the earmarks of a disruptive technology, with the added advantage that it's based on well-deployed standard technologies.. i.e.: stuff Microsoft can't mess with as easily as Java.

And it's good for Windows users too

[moriya]

People seem to be looking at this from one side. And that's the Mac side. The first batches of comments seem to stem from folks who are keeping up with the Apple/Mac side of things.

While the acquisition of Konfabulator and its removal of the pricetag is great news for all users of the program, do note that Konfabulator, while originating on the Mac, also has a competitor on the Windows side. That side has been dominated by Stardock's own DesktopX application where it's been around for quite a while now.

The news of Yahoo buying up Konfabulator will benefit both sides of the OS platform. Windows users can soon use Konfabulator for free as an alternative to Stardock's DesktopX which costs about US$15 to register/purchase.

I tried to like Konfabulator

[Dixie_Flatline]

...but in the end, I just never found anything that useful.

A weather checking widget? Check. But I have a web browser with a tab to my local weather up at all times anyway.

A package tracking widget? You bet. But I only have one or two packages to track every year. I always have a tab open to that page.

A calculator widget? Of course. But it's still slower than asking google, since my web browser is always open.

Konfabulator (and Dashboard) can do some pretty interesting things, as long as you don't have any other utilities on your machine. Unfortunately, it's unable to consolidate and replace the bunch of utilities that you already have, since you're unlikely to give up big things like your web browser.

I'm sure there are a bunch of people out there that really like it, and find it super useful. That's awesome. I'm glad someone appreciates the hard work that the Konfabulator (and Dashboard) guys did. I just can't find a single useful widget that isn't better implemented or accessed somewhere else.

How about a decent Yahoo Messanger! for Mac

[Bright_Steel]

I'm really disappointed Yahoo has left Yahoo messanger to rot on the vine.
No Supermode
No Audibles
No new features for years now.

Yahoo, when are you going to update Messanger for the Mac.

Huh?

[jizmonkey]

Apple's behaviour apparently wasn't breaking any law as such but it was the equivalent of some kid leaning over your shoulder and copying your homework.

What? I know that Slashdotters aren't all on the same page, but most people here generally agree that software patents are bad. Especially the vague, hazy, and overbroad ones that look like obsfucated user manuals (claiming entire kinds of software or user interfaces) rather than looking like nice detailed technical USENIX conference papers. Only Konfabulator wasn't patented.

Now you're saying that even though Konfabulator wasn't patented, wasn't a trade secret, Apple isn't a monopolist, and no part of the Konfabulator code was used by Apple, Apple should be barred from making a similar product? Pray tell, what is this argument based? Should Apple's product suck just so that these small fry can make a couple bucks? Are you saying Apple should do it just to be nice? (It would be nice if Apple sent me a check for $50k so I could buy a Lexus. Just to be nice.) Comparing the free market of the software industry to an elementary school math test is a little facile, eh?

Surely you know, since you pointed to the daringfireball website, that there was nothing in Konfabulator, other than the general idea of JavaScript desktop accessories, that would have been useful to Apple. The reason Apple chose to write Dashboard from scratch is that it could save a lot of system resources and make a more polished product by leveraging existing parts of OS X like Web Kit. Konfabulator was a monstrously heavyweight framework based on Mozilla -- each desktop accessory was bigger than many Mac applications. The people at Apple aren't stupid. If buying Konfabulator would have saved them time and money, they would have done it, just like they bought SoundJam.

Konfabulator made a lot of money on Windows, as well as Mac, and now they got their payday from Yahoo!. No tears shed there, I'm sure.

Re:too lazy to google right now

[AliasMoze]

I find it difficult to look at Konfabulator's widgets and look at Apple's widgets and believe that Konfabulator doesn't have something big to do with Dashboard.

It may or may not make perfect since for Apple to develop a javascript/HTML tool based on Webkit, but one that looks and feels almost identical to Konfabulator? Let's face it. If Windows had done Dashboard, Mac users worldwide wouldn't be able to shut up about how Windows ripped off poor Konfabulator.

On the flipside, if Dashboard's popularity made the Yahoo deal happen (which, come on, it probably did), then Konfabulator probably just made out better than they'd ever imagined.

(disclaimer: typing this in Tiger)

Re:looks like the semantic web is taking off

[Decker-Mage]

I believe you are on to something here. Frankly, I won't do Flash, I won't do Java, and I certainly WON'T do ActiveX. With the exception of ActiveX, all involve rather large, separate downloads whereas Javascript is just there. Also look at Ajax. It just works without anything special being added and it works very well.

Now admittedly, Javascript as a language sucks rocks but you can depend on it working cross-browser, cross-OS, cross-dang-near-anything, and the user doesn't have to do a thing to get it to work. That meets the Grandmother standard that I use these days for measuring user utility. [Not to put down Grandma's. My 76 y.o. mother rocks at programming!]

[Actually, it's rather funny that I figured out how to do Ajax back in 2000 while mucking around in the MSDN's I had and stumbled across XMLHTTPResponse(). I posted what I found all over the place and nobody did a damn thing with it. Now it's the hot tamale. Weird world.]

That's just my $.02, FWIW.

Oh well

[93 Escort Wagon]

A while back I'd tried Konfabulator after hearing some Mac folks rave about it. Basically (explaining for the non-Mac crowd) it was these eye-candy-ful little widgets that would sit on your desktop all the time, showing you the weather, info about an RSS feed, or somesuch stuff. This seemed pretty pointless, since most of the time my desktop is hidden behind all the apps I've got open pretty much whenever my computer is running - but you'd be amazed at the number of Mac users who apparently just leave a blank desktop open so they can stare at it and drool.

Well, anyway - then along comes Tiger, and Apple announces Dashboard. It's Konfabulator done right - the widgets can be brought into view whenever you actually need them rather than having them hiding back on your desktop. Of course after this announcement, it wasn't long before the Konfabulator guys copied the idea of (gasp!) not having the widgets hidden back there - what a concept!

But you know what? Even Dashboard seems pretty pointless. I've got a web browser open all the time, so it's just as fast to click on my weather bookmark, or go to ups.com to track packages, or leave a tab open to my gmail account all the time (after all, if I get a new message I'm going to have to open it anyway). While Dashboard certainly seems to be a better implementation than Konfabulator, but it's still basically an idea that is of no practical use to me. At least the price is right, either way now...

Re:too lazy to google right now

[NutscrapeSucks]

If Windows had done Dashboard, Mac users worldwide wouldn't be able to shut up about how Windows ripped off poor Konfabulator.

Actually, Windows did do "Dashboard" back in 1998, but the widgets were stuck to your desktop, and your PC only had 64MB of RAM, and the stock widgets seemed to be mainly spamish RSS-type newsfeeds, so it didn't seem all that. But it was the same basic idea.

The MS widget list is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/galle ry/default.mspx [microsoft.com]
(Wow, there's a grand total of 3 which still work, I'm amazed.)

It was interesting for about 10 minutes and then forgotten (much like I expect Dashboard and Konfabulator to be). As for Mac users, they've shown that they are totally immune to things Windows implemented years before Apple did.

Re:Great news for Yahoo users.

[Angostura]

Surely Yahoo is doing this the wrong way round though:

You say:

I'd love to to see what these things can do if you're able to hook them into the full range of Yahoo information/services.

Surely what is needed is for Yahoo to publish a rich, well documented set of APIs, rather like Google* has done - this would let any desktop software (Konfabulator, Dashboard, Linux stuff, whatever) access the information.

Instead it seems that Yahoo has decided against this and instead is insulating its core APIs by only giving access via a proprietary software layer (Konfabulator) sitting on the client. Seems a bit weird to me.

*Yes, I'm aware of the restrictions that Google places on its API use.

Re:How about a decent Yahoo Messanger! for Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yahoo, when are you going to update Messanger for the Mac."

You Macintosh persons! Stop whining! "We" bought Konfabulationer. WTF more do you want from us?!"

Anonymous Yahoo Coward Person

Re:looks like the semantic web is taking off

[ffdixon]

The web is great, but it has two faults: it requires manual effort to monitor updates to content you care about, and when web browser is closed, a web site (such as Yahoo) can't alert you to updates other than by flooding your inbox with more e-mail.

RSS is helping this, but it's only providing the content. I think people are missing an important point on these Web-based desktop applications: it lets a web site (such as Yahoo) provide content-specific logic with their data to increase traffic.

RSS: "Here is our feed; we hope you find it valuable and come back."

Web-based desktop applications: "Here is our feed PLUS a script-based program that increases its value by letting you personalize your awareness to our content."

Such applications let you offer content + content-specific logic to users. Not only can you offload some of the processing on your server, but more importantly give users a way to personalize their awareness, which leads to more traffic.

I think Konfabulator provides great eye candy, but is a bit too unstructured for corporate deployment. Corporations (and users) like consistency in an interface. If you want to see an example of a consistent interface for monitoring and alerting to changes in XML or HTML-based content, check out Serence KlipFolio [serence.com]. It has a JavaScript run-time engine and built-in APIs that make putting the business logic on the desktop easy.

Regards,... Fred

--
Life is NP-Complete

Re:Apple's implementation is better?

[mrchaotica]

The only way Dashboard is "better" is that all the widgets run in one process, instead of forking a process for each widget like Konfabulator does. It's probably an order of magnitude better in terms of performance.

Re:Cheap buy?

[snorklewacker]

Windows has always had the ability to add scriptable components to the desktop. I believe there was a great hue and cry about how evil and unstable this all was, and about how desktops weren't supposed to be playgrounds or HTML renderers and blah blah blah.

You can still add such components, and script them in any language that implements the WSH interface.

But of course Konfabulator widgets all run in a security sandbox and could never do anything malicious. Right?