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Its the end of an era for Yahoo Messenger, one of the first instant messaging apps. Oath, the Verizon subsidiary that operates Yahoo has announced that it would be winding down the service on July 17.
There currently isnt a replacement product available for Yahoo Messenger, the company writes. Were constantly experimenting with new services and apps, one of which is an invite-only group messaging app called Yahoo Squirrel (which is currently in beta phase).
Cumulatively over the last 20 years, hundreds of millions of people have used the service. The company says that your Yahoo ID remains intact for other services like Mail and fantasy sports. The company is not specific about its reasons for shutting down Yahoo Messenger, but the writing has been on the wall for some time, given the dominance today of Facebooks WhatsApp and Messenger, Snapchat, WeChat and a number of other similar apps.
We know we have many loyal fans who have used Yahoo Messenger since its beginning as one of the first chat apps of its kind, it notes. As the communications landscape continues to change over, were focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs.
For the people afraid of losing their data Yahoo says that you can download your chat history on Messenger for the next six months. Files go to your computer or device but not to another messaging app.
Messengers role and functions were surpassed by faster and more functional mobile-based services. Notably, WhatsApp which was created by an ex-Yahoo employee.
That's the beauty of technology that new and better takes over the previous giants and a new era starts. Today yahoo is going offline, who knows sometime in future Facebook and Whatsapp will also become talk of the past.
