Earlier today, Verizon subsidiary Oath announced its plan to shut down one of the most popular messenger service of the history. I am talking about ‘Yahoo Messenger’ that will no longer be supported after July 17, 2018. The company is now redirecting users to its brand new group messaging app Squirrel.
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The company has not given any specific reason for this big decision. But we can assume that dominance of WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat like services have affected the usage of Yahoo Messenger a lot. Oath already shutdown AIM last year in October for the same reason.
Yahoo Messenger came into existence back in March 9, 1998 as Yahoo Pager. It came as an alternative to email and SMS to be a initial hit. Later on June 21, 1999, it was rebranded as Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo enjoyed good success with Yahoo Messenger on mobile. Now after 20 years of its existence, it will be no more.
After July 17, you will no longer be able to access your chats. But you will have option to download the chat history for next 6 months. Your Yahoo ID will continue to be active for other Yahoo services like Mail and Fantasy.
