Yahoo Messenger

Booted from the chat room one last time

Shut down
19902026

Yahoo Messenger was one of the big three instant messengers of the 2000s, launched as Yahoo Pager on 9 March 1998. Its chat rooms, emoticons and BUZZ! button made it the messenger of choice across much of Asia and the Middle East. Oath shut it down on 17 July 2018, after twenty years.

Timeline

  1. 1998
  2. 9 March 1998 Launch
    Launches as Yahoo Pager

    Renamed Yahoo Messenger in 1999.

  3. 2005
  4. 13 October 2005 Feature
    Interop pact with MSN Messenger

    Yahoo and Microsoft link their networks against market leader AIM, a first among the big three.

  5. 2006
  6. 2006 Peak
    One of the big three messengers worldwide

    Dominant in South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

  7. 2012
  8. 14 December 2012 Decline
    Yahoo kills public chat rooms

    The feature that defined it for millions is removed.

  9. 2016
  10. 5 August 2016 Version
    Legacy client shut down, app rewritten

    The rewrite drops history, plugins and interop.

  11. 2017
  12. 13 June 2017 Acquisition
    Verizon closes the Yahoo acquisition

    Messenger lands in Oath, the AOL-Yahoo holding company that will retire it.

  13. 2018
  14. 8 June 2018 Shutdown announced
    Oath announces the end of Yahoo Messenger

    Users pointed to the invite-only Squirrel app.

  15. 17 July 2018 Shutdown
    Yahoo Messenger shuts down

    Twenty years and four months after launch.

Ownership

Yahoo 1998–2017 Founded Launched as Yahoo Pager
Verizon (Oath) 2017–2018 Acquisition, $4.48B Shut down a year after the acquisition closed

Why it shut down

Official line: Oath announced Yahoo Messenger would shut down on July 17, 2018, saying "there are new virtual communication tools that better fit consumer needs" and pointing users at its invite-only Squirrel app.

Our analysis: Yahoo Messenger outlived its rivals on the strength of emerging markets and its chat rooms, but Yahoo's own decade of drift left it unmaintained. The 2016 rewrite deleted the features people stayed for, and by 2018 Oath was simply turning off the lights.

History

The third giant

Yahoo launched its messenger as Yahoo Pager in March 1998, renaming it a year later. Alongside AIM and MSN Messenger it completed the big three of desktop IM, and in much of the world (India, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Middle East) it was first, not third. Public chat rooms, audibles, the BUZZ! window-shake and early free voice calls kept it alive long after the US moved on.

Drift and shutdown

Messenger decayed along with the rest of Yahoo through the 2010s: chat rooms were axed in 2012, the veteran client was replaced in 2016 by a stripped-down rewrite that discarded interoperability and history, and the audience that remained left with it. After Verizon folded Yahoo into Oath, the end came quickly: announced 8 June 2018, gone 17 July 2018. Its suggested successor, an invite-only group chat app called Squirrel, was itself dead within a year, a fitting end for the last of the desktop-IM dynasty.

Similar projects

ICQ The messenger that gave you a number 1996–2024 AIM Away messages and slammed doors 1997–2017 MSN Messenger The sound of nudges after school 1999–2014 Skype The app that made calling the world free 2003–2025 Google Allo Google's WhatsApp that wasn't 2016–2019 Google Hangouts One messenger to rule them all, briefly 2013–2022

Sources

  1. Yahoo Messenger is shutting down on July 17 TechCrunch 8 June 2018 [archived]
  2. Yahoo Messenger Will Be Discontinued on July 17, 2018 MacRumors 8 June 2018 [archived]

Last verified: 11 August 2026