Yahoo is serving us as an email client plus a search engine for so long now. For the 90’s kids, Yahoo was the pioneer of the early internet era. The email service provider introduced a few messaging apps known by the names of Yahoo chat room, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Together that we all have been using for the last approx. 20 years. But all that have come to an end when Yahoo announced closure of its Messenger service.
Let’s read where it all began from.
Just after 3 years of its birth, Yahoo launched its first public chat room service in 1997. Soon after its unveiling, Yahoo Chat Room ascended the heights of popularity. Yahoo Chat Room was later introduced as a feature of Yahoo Pager in 1998.
The chat room service somewhat eased the communication process and allowed the young generation of that time to initiate a conversation with strangers from across the globe and make friends. It was the first interactive social media that I came to know about from a friend of mine who was already using it.
It was in 1999, the Yahoo chat room service was renovated as Yahoo Messenger. 2012 was not great for Yahoo users as the Yahoo chat room service came to an end this year. Most of the users were extremely disappointed when their favorite time killer stopped existing. Yahoo disclosed the reason for discontinuing the chat room service that they want to focus on other Yahoo products and the growth of the company altogether.
But that was not the end, as in 2015, Yahoo Messenger was back and this time with much more advanced features. Besides, sending free text messages, images, Gifs, emoticons, the new version came up with the undo message feature, Yahoo group chatting, and much more. Features like VoIP, Yahoo! 360 integration, voicemail, video calling, in-chat YouTube streaming, Flickr support, and the ability to chat with Facebook friends were also a part of Yahoo Messenger.
Apps come and go and the same happened with Yahoo. The company came up with its final decision to shut down the new Yahoo Messenger in May 2018 and announced that it would be winding out the instant messaging app on July 17, 2018.
The company wrote “There currently isn’t a replacement product available for Yahoo Messenger. We’re constantly experimenting with new services and apps, one of which is an invite-only group messaging app called Yahoo Squirrel (currently in beta).”
Later on, Yahoo Together, a new messaging service was introduced, but it too shut down on April 4, 2019.
After the discontinuation of the Yahoo messenger app, users will no longer be able to use the messaging feature but they could still download their chats, history, or archives of Yahoo Messenger on their computer till November 2018 after that all the access will be withdrawn. Even if you have the app installed on your phone, it will no longer work after the shutdown.
So if you have been searching Yahoo instant message mobile app for chatting and are using one under the name of Yahoo, let me tell you those all are fake that are showing up in Google results. Even the Yahoo Squirrel app that the company revealed has not launched officially yet and maybe in progress. For now, it is an invite-only app and no other official Yahoo messaging service is available right now.
The discontinuation of Yahoo instant messenger created chaos among the loyal Yahoo users who were connected with it for so long. The company has not specifically disclosed the reasons for taking down the app but some things are obvious. Facebook, Whatsapp, Snapchat, and several other messaging apps are perhaps the reason for Yahoo not being in the race. Possibly, Yahoo is working on to compete against other instant messenger apps such as Facebook and Whatsapp. It was only after their introduction that Yahoo started losing its following as people started to switch. Notably, it was ex-Yahoo employees who created Whatsapp.
