Yahoo Messenger is shutting down on July 17, redirects users to group messaging app Squirrel – TechCrunch

The company is not specific about its reasons for shutting down Messenger, but the writing has been on the wall for some time, given the dominance today of Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger, Snapchat, WeChat and a number of others. Notably, Oath also shut down AIM, AOL’s equivalent messaging app, in October.

“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, we’re focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs.”

Yahoo says that you can download your chat history on Messenger for the next six months by going here. Files go to your computer or device — but not specifically to another messaging app.

Yahoo Messenger first made its debut as Yahoo Pager way back in 1998, at a time when instant messaging was the terrain of PCs, as an alternative to email and SMS on basic mobile devices. It was an early hit and popularised the idea of “over the top” messaging that was not tied to a specific service provider.

But like other services in that first generation of messaging, Messenger’s role and functions were swiftly surpassed by faster and more functional mobile-based services, and specifically mobile messaging apps. Notably, WhatsApp was created by ex-Yahoo employees.

In the years since, Yahoo has had moderate (but far from blockbuster) success with Yahoo Messenger on mobile, which today ranks at 160 on iOS and 117 on Android in the social networking category, according to App Annie. Other attempts at building new messaging products have been short-lived.

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