Yahoo Messenger
More info
- Creator
- Yahoo
- Released
- Type
- Instant messaging
Yahoo's instant-messaging client, 1998–2018, one of the 2000s' big chat apps alongside AIM and ICQ.
Yahoo Messenger (first called Yahoo Pager) launched in 1998 and quickly became one of the dominant instant-messaging clients. It had chat rooms, animated smileys, the Doodle drawing pad, webcam, and the infamous "buzz" button that shook the recipient's window — features that defined early chat culture as much as the technology behind them.
Like AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger, it ran on closed protocols and a central Yahoo account. As mobile chat and social networks took over it faded, and Yahoo shut the service down in 2018 with no replacement. An attempted successor (Yahoo Together) was itself killed within a year.