Yahoo has been in a transition period for quite some time trying to get back some of its market and mindshare, and that has occasionally meant cutting things off.
This time it’s Yahoo Messenger’s turn to get a feature trim, and the company has announced on their blog that the once popular messaging service will lose some important features starting December 14th.
First of all Yahoo Messenger will lose interoperability with Microsoft’s Live Messenger. Users will still see their Live friends online but they will not be able to send them messages or interact in any way. This is somewhat of a big deal as the interop was certainly an important feature.
Chat Rooms as well as Voice calls to landlines are also getting cut. Arguably nobody cares about chat rooms anymore, but the Call in and out features were definitely big ones and Yahoo’s answer in the fight with Skype. Users are no longer able to add credit to their accounts and they will get a refund for their remaining balance. Messenger-to-Messenger calls will still be available but it’s pretty clear Yahoo has conceded this fight.
And lastly and probably least important: Pingbox, an embeddable applet developed by Yahoo, will stop functioning after the 14th. Users that have this installed on their websites and blogs will have to disable and delete it.
For more info on the account refunds and how to disable Pingbox be sure to check the source link below. In the meantime let us know: were you YMessenger users or has everyone forgotten it ever existed?
Source: Yahoo Messenger Blog | Image via Yahoo
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