Yahoo Messenger to shut down in July after 20 years

[Shawn Knight]

Recap: Most have likely already moved on but for those who used the program during its heyday, it’s sad to see it go. You’ll still be able to download your chat history for the next six months, however, by visiting the downloader request site.

Another early relic of the Internet era will soon be put to pasture. Yahoo on Friday announced it will be discontinuing its Yahoo Messenger application next month at which time you’ll no longer be able to access chats and the service will cease to work.

Originally launched as Yahoo Pager in 1998 at the dawn of the Internet boom, Yahoo Messenger was one of several early instant messaging clients. Alongside others like AOL’s Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ, Yahoo Messenger allowed Internet users to easily communicate with each other via text-based chat.

Such programs were incredibly popular in the late 1990s and through much of the 2000s but eventually fell out of favor as the mobile revolution took root. Think of them as the WhatsApp, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger of an earlier generation.

With Yahoo Messenger now on the chopping block (it’s scheduled for sunset on July 17), only ICQ persists. MSN Messenger was shut down in 2014 and AOL pulled the plug on AIM last December. Yahoo refreshed Messenger by adding some modern touches in 2015 but even then, the writing was on the wall and it was only a matter of time before the app would be laid to rest.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/74995-yahoo-messenger-shut-down-july-after-20-years.html

 

[TomSEA]

Wow...I forgot all about Yahoo Messenger, but used the hell out of it in the beginning and probably for a good 3-4 years.

Time marches on.

 

[madboyv1]

Cutting out all of the third party clients a couple years back is what killed YIM for me. I was still using it on a rare occasion, but more often using Oscar (AIM) with a couple dozen people I knew before that closed down... RIP.

 

[Puiu]

Wait, yahoo messenger was still working? O_o

 

[psycros]

Another grand relic of a better time passes into history. I pity the kids who will be fighting spam, stalkers and identity theft and political oppression their whole lives because of trash like Facebook.

 

[Uncle Al]

It was great in it's day, but lost it's luster about 10 years ago ..... RIP to a once great product .....

 

[avioza]

Cutting out all of the third party clients a couple years back is what killed YIM for me.

Yeah, my friends and I were still using it until that happened.

 

[tipstir]

Yes it still working Scammers from Nigeria, Ghana the rest use that to scam for love, money, etc.. So they're going to force them to go too Google Hangouts, Whatsapp etc.. To do their dirty work. Yahoo Messenger I never cared for too much but everyone texting on the cell now No need for these apps again. Yahoo Chat which was live was the bomb but all good things come to the end... Progress...

 

[taylor1277]

Well, I am not one that is up to date when it comes to technology. but I am not that far behind. Is someone still using Yahoo Messenger? You know no one is to blame for it, other than Yahoo themselves. I mean have you ever seen a company where one can show up and doesn't have to do anything with the company except sell ads over the last 10 yrs. Marissa Mayers was only put there by Google to keep it at bay, so Google could keep its number 1 place as the browser king. Yahoo is where it is today because that is the way they run the company. If you look back at Yahoo, they pioneered manly things we see on the internet today, messenger= snapchat, WhatsApp and all the other messenger services. If you give me something on the internet today I can probably go back to when Yahoo had it. They just sat around and never did anything. Yahoo had auctions, maps, wallet, photos, etc. etc. etc. I know things change on the internet over the years but for Yahoo its no one fault but their own. Don't cry for them.

 

[James00007]

Yahoo just gave up a maintaining key features like chat. It's main selling point was chat so there really was no reason to stick around after they took it away, especially when it had nothing more to offer than other services especially Facebook which had more users.

It's surprising Yahoo itself is even still around after the culling of its key services let alone its messenger system.

There hasn't been a free and open chat experience like Yahoo since then. The chat room is a dead part of internet along with the quality of web browsers.

 

[slamscaper]

I can't believe it was still being maintained...

 

[mark kram]

I just tried logging into messenger. No luck. It said I was offline or had DNS trouble. It's chat rooms were the first nationwide social media site.

 

[mark kram]

The reason it's still around is Yahoo finance and pro sports message boards. Yahoo makes most of its money from the finance section.