New Yahoo Texting App: Old Web-based Yahoo Messenger Will Soon Retire

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Let’s make a little experiment: check your smartphone for messaging apps. How many do you have? I’m guessing you have Facebook Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp, and/or Viber – the four rated as the most popular messaging apps on the market.

Was I right? How about Yahoo Messenger, though? Remember the company’s instant messaging service that saw its peak in the late ‘90s and early 2000s? Even if you most likely don’t have it now, you might download it after you see the new life Yahoo has breathed into Yahoo Messenger.

According to a recent company statement, the old web-based Yahoo Messenger will soon meet its retirement, sometime in the next couple months. First snapshots of the revamped platform show the new Yahoo Messenger app is similar to the messaging services already available for smartphones.

All you need is to log in with your phone number (or your Yahoo Mail account, if you still use that one) and the app initiates a scan into your contacts for people who also use the app. If you choose to connect with your Yahoo Mail account, your contacts from will automatically appear.

But thanks to Tumblr – the entertainment and social platform owned by Yahoo – the new Messenger has a few aces up its sleeve, such as built-in GIF search. There’s also the ability of sharing photos in bulk almost instantly, regardless of the type of Internet connection you work with – via Yahoo-owned Flickr – and the possibility of “liking” individual messages.

But most importantly of all, Yahoo has equipped its service with a new feature of unsending any messages you’ve sent at any time. Something tells me this feature will come in handy many times – especially when it comes to drunk texting your ex that you miss him or her.

According to Austin Shoemaker, chief director of product management for Yahoo Messenger, this is not just a single app, but as platform that allows the messaging service to be integrated with other Yahoo products – a lot like Google Hangouts works within Gmail. Yahoo thinks plenty of its products could benefit from adding a “lightweight communication layer.”

Yahoo has been pretty busy this past year, releasing two standalone messaging apps and a redesigned Yahoo Mail app. The first texting app is called Livetext, and it combines live video with ephemeral messages – similar to Snapchat.
Image Source: News Softpedia

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Matthew Slotkin

Matthew Slotkin has graduated from Rice University with a degree in History and English. He worked as an assistant professor before joining The Mirror Daily as a full time writer.