Yahoo Kills Its 18-Year-Old Messenger App, What’s Next For Yahoo?

Yahoo will be shutting down the Yahoo Messenger app this coming August 5.

Yahoo Messenger or YM is one of the earliest adapter of instant messaging client that is supported by advertisements. Yahoo Messenger can be accessed via the web or the Yahoo Messenger app. The Yahoo Messenger account is linked to a Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo Messenger also has many integrations. It has PC-PC, Phone-to-PC and PC-Phone services. Coming in before Skype, the Yahoo Messenger offers webcam hosting, text messaging and organized chat rooms. However, all of that is about to change.

According to Yahoo’s Chief Architect Amotz Maimon, they have already “outlined a plan for streamlining the business and focusing on our strengths across seven core consumer products: Mail, Search, Tumblr, News, Sports, Finance and Lifestyles.” Maimon wrote that to serve their 1 billion users better, they will be implementing proper changes to Yahoo Messenger.

In December of 2015, we announced a brand new Yahoo Messenger for mobile, the Web and in Yahoo Mail on the desktop, built on a new modern platform. This complete revamp brings users an incredibly fast, beautiful and smart way to send – and unsend – messages, photos and animated GIFs in 1:1 and group conversations. While today we provide basic interoperation between the legacy product and the new Messenger, we encourage all of our users to complete their transition to the new Yahoo Messenger as we will no longer support the legacy platform as of August 5, 2016. We intend to continue our focused efforts on the new Messenger, with a goal of delivering the best experience to our users.

Basically, they are saying that the legacy of Yahoo Messenger will continue, but they will introduce a brand new design.

To catch up with major communications competitors like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, Yahoo might integrate new features in the new version of Yahoo Messenger.

So far, Yahoo has not indicated what their timeline is when it comes to completing the new version of the Yahoo Messenger. However, they already noted that the new version will be available on Windows and Mac.

For users who will just wait for the update, Yahoo is also making some changes when it comes to the archiving of previous conversations. Archived messages are saved in the user’s Yahoo Mail, but as of August 5, those will be deleted as well.

For users who intend to save these archives, they can export them to the desktop or laptop. In the new Yahoo Messenger,, messages and conversations will be saved in their respective chat windows.

Furthermore, Yahoo also decided to discontinue Yahoo Recommends on Sept. 1, 2016. Yahoo noted that, for publishers to continue monetizing their platform, publishers can go to Yahoo Gemini, a new monetization tool that provides publishers access to native advertising technology and high-quality ads. For more information, publishers can contact Gemini-publishers@yahoo-inc.com.

As for Yahoo’s next plans, they just announced their very recent integration with Kik.

At Yahoo, we’ve always built experiences at the intersection of search, communications and content to help you connect with what matters most to you. Today, we’re thrilled to announce three new Yahoo-powered bots, available on Kik. We are excited to explore how messaging will change the way that we all discover and engage with information. – Jon Paris, Senior Director of Product, Yahoo

Yahoo opens its doors to users’ feedback.

[Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images]