Yahoo Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger was an instant messaging client and associated protocol created and formerly operated by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo ID", which also allowed access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail.
The service also offered VoIP, file transfers, webcam hosting, a text messaging service, and chat rooms in various categories. In addition to instant messaging features similar to those offered by ICQ, it also offered features such as: IMVironments, address-book integration and Custom Status Messages. It was also the first major IM client to feature BUZZing and music-status.
Yahoo! Messenger dates back to Yahoo! Chat, which was a public chat room service. The actual client, originally called Yahoo! Pager, launched on March 9, 1998 and renamed to Yahoo! Messenger in 1999. Yahoo! Messenger was among the most popular instant messengers during the 2000s. In 2015, a reworked Yahoo! Messenger service was introduced and the legacy version was discontinued in 2016. The new Yahoo! Messenger itself was shut down entirely on July 17, 2018, after less than three years.
History
Yahoo! Pager
Yahoo! Pager launched on March 9, 1998, an instant messaging client integrated with Yahoo! services including Yahoo! Chat. It included basic messaging support, a buddy list with status message support, the ability to block other users, alerts when a buddies came online, and notifications when a new Yahoo! Mail message arrived. In 2000, the name changed to Yahoo! Messenger.Versions 5 to 8
Version 5.0, released November 2001, introduced IMVironments, an initiative that allowed users to play music and Flash Video clips inside the IM window. Yahoo! partnered with rock band Garbage that provided their single "Androgyny" available to share by users. Other partnerships also made IMVironments for the movie Monsters, Inc., the video game Super Smash Bros. Melee, and the character Hello Kitty, among others.In August 2002 with the release of version 5.5, the resolution for video calling was increased to a possible 320x240 and 20 frames per second. From October 2002, Yahoo! offered for corporate subscribers a more secure and better encrypted IM client, called Yahoo! Messenger Enterprise Edition. It was released with a $30 yearly subscription package in 2003.
Yahoo! Messenger version 6.0 was released in May 2004. It added games, music, photos, and Yahoo! Search, alongside a "stealth" mode. It also debuted Yahoo! Avatars. With the release of version 7.0 in August 2005, the client was now renamed to Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. It had several new features such as VoIP, voicemail, drag-and-drop file and photo sharing, Yahoo! 360° and LAUNCHcast integration, and others. It was seen as a challenger against Skype.
On October 12, 2005, Yahoo! and Microsoft formed an alliance in which Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger will be interconnected, allowing users of both communities to communicate and share emoticons and buddy lists with each other. The service was enabled on Yahoo! Messenger with Voice 8.0 in July 2006. As of version 8.1, the name switched back to just Yahoo! Messenger.
Beginning in 2006, Yahoo made known its intention to provide a web interface for Yahoo! Messenger, culminating in the Gmail-like web archival and indexing of chat conversations through Yahoo! Mail. However, while Yahoo! Mail integrated much of the rudimentary features of Messenger beginning in 2007, Yahoo did not succeed initially in integrating archival of chat conversations into Mail. Instead, a separate Adobe Flex-based web messenger was released in 2007 with archival of conversations which take place inside the web messenger itself.
Web version and later releases
At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2007, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista was introduced, which is a version designed and optimized for Windows Vista. It exploited the new design elements of Vista's Windows Presentation Foundation and introduced a new user interface and features. The application was in a preview beta until finally released for download on December 6, 2007. As of October 24, 2008, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista is no longer available.In May 2007, Yahoo! Messenger for the Web was launched, a browser-based client of the IM service.
Yahoo! Messenger version 9 was released in September 2008. It allows the viewing of YouTube videos within the chat window, and integrates with other Yahoo! services such as Flickr. This version also saw the release of Pingbox, which embeds on a blog or website and allows visitors to send IM texts anonymously without needing Yahoo! Messenger software or to sign in. Version 10, released November 2009, incorporates many bug fixes and features high-quality video calling.
The last major Windows client release, version 11 in 2011, featured integration with Facebook, Twitter and Zynga, allowing chat with Facebook friends and playing Zynga games within. It also archives past messages on an online server which is accessible through the client. Version 11.5 added tabbed IMs.
New Yahoo Messenger
In December 2015, an all-new, rewritten Yahoo! Messenger was launched, only on mobile and through a browser. A desktop version of the "new" Messenger was later released, shortly before the "legacy" Messenger shut down on August 5, 2016 and the clients no longer working by August 31, 2016.Unable to find success like in the older days, Yahoo! eventually announced that the new Yahoo! Messenger service would shut down on July 18, 2018.
Mobile versions
Mobile versions of Yahoo! Messenger were launched originally for Palm OS and Windows CE devices. In a deal signed March 2000, Yahoo! Messenger would come bundled on Palm handheld computers. It was also available for Verizon Wireless customers, through a deal with Yahoo! announced in March 2001, and through Sprint's MiniBrowser. A version for the T-Mobile Sidekick II was released in 2004. This was to be followed by versions for Symbian, BlackBerry, and then for iPhone in April 2009. A version called Yahoo! Messenger for SMS also existed, which allowed IM via SMS. As of January 2014, the iOS version supported voice calls, with video calling on some devices. The Android version supported "voice & video calls ".Yahoo! Together
Yahoo! Together was a freeware and cross-platform messaging service, developed by Yahoo! for the Android and iOS mobile platforms. The software was introduced in beta on May 8, 2018, as Yahoo! Squirrel to replace Yahoo! Messenger and Verizon Media's AOL Instant Messenger. In October 2018, it was renamed to its present name. Yahoo! Together was targeted to families and the consumer market rather than enterprise. The app was compared to Slack. Less than a year after its public beta release, Yahoo! Together went offline on April 4, 2019.Group conversations (Yahoo! Chat)
Yahoo! Messenger allowed private group conversations. Yahoo! Chat was a free online chat room service provided exclusively for Yahoo! users. Yahoo! Chat was first launched on January 7, 1997. Yahoo! Chat was a separate vertical on Yahoo!. On March 9, 1998, the first public version of Yahoo! Pager was released, with Yahoo! Chat among its features. It allowed users to create public chat rooms, send private messages, and use emoticons.In its original form, Yahoo! Chat was a user-to-user text chat service used by millions worldwide. Soon after launch, Yahoo! Chat partnered with NBC and NewsCorp to produce moderated Chat Events. Yahoo! Chat events eventually developed broadcast partnerships with 100+ entities and hosted 350+ events-a-month. Yahoo's Live Chat with the music group Hanson on July 21, 1998, was the Internet's largest live event to date. The blockbusters kept on with events including 3 Beatles, a live event from Columbine during the tragedy, live chats from outer space with John Glenn and many others. Sadly, in one of Yahoo's poorer decisions, Yahoo! Chat Events were discontinued in 2001, right at the start of the social media era.
In June 2005, with no advance warning, Yahoo disabled users' ability to create their own chat rooms. The move came after KPRC-TV in Houston, Texas, reported that many of the user-created rooms were geared toward pedophilia. The story prompted several advertisers, including Pepsi and Georgia-Pacific, to pull their ads from Yahoo.
On November 30, 2012, Yahoo announced that among other changes that the public chat rooms would be discontinued as of December 14, 2012. quoting "This will enable us to refocus our efforts on modernizing our core Yahoo products experiences and of course, create new ones"
Yahoo has since closed down the chat.yahoo.com site because the great majority of chat users accessed it through Messenger. The company worked for a while on a way to allow users to create their own rooms while providing safeguards against abuse. A greyed-out option to "create a room" was available until the release of version 11.