Santa Clara, CA -- January 7, 1996 -- Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced the launch of Yahoo! Chat (Outdated URL (Invalid)), featuring the latest real-time, multimedia, Web-based chat services based on ichat inc.'s chat technology. Free for use, Yahoo! Chat is available to all Internet users, worldwide, and offers a dynamic platform for communication among Yahoo!'s user community.
That was the original press release and now just shy of 17 years later Yahoo! has unceremoniously closed the doors and turned out the lights in all of it's chat rooms. Yahoo! chat no longer exists. My Yahoo! account is about 15 years old. I remember creating my first screen name in AOL not long before that. My exwife used to babysit some young girls and one of them was sitting on my lap watching everything I did like always. I let her choose my screen name. She said "Uncle" because that's what she called me. After a little coaxing for her to pick something other than my real name she finally came up with the word skinny. I guess I was skinnier 15 years ago. So I typed uncleskinny and it didn't fit. The box had a 9 character limit. I dropped one of the n's and became uncleskiny. The name migrated to Yahoo! not long after that and 15 years later the account still exists. That little girl would be about 20 or 21 by now probably with no idea that an uncleskiny still floats around the internet.
So uncleskiny floated around the local chat rooms for a couple of years basically making fun of what everyone else was talking about and then I got an invitation from a young woman to join another Yahoo! chat room. It was kind of a weird invitation it said something like "I'd like you to come chat in my regular chat room but be nice. These people are my friends." I think my response was "Ok but I'm not making any promises." Surprisingly the room was mostly full of teachers and professors from all over the world. These people were actually having intelligent conversations. This became my regular chat room for well over 10 years. I've rarely used Yahoo! chat in the last few years though. The old crowd from that chat room is mostly gone and I would enter that chat room maybe once every few months just for appearance's sake.
I got a message earlier in the week from another chatter telling me that Yahoo! chat is closed. She told me some of the chatters from that room have migrated to another chat client which I should install. That was kind of surprising since, like I said - I almost never chat anymore. I haven't decided if I'll bother installing it yet.
It still seems odd that Yahoo! chat is gone. It's like a neighbour or coworker leaving that you weren't really very good friends with anyway but they've been around forever so you still notice the absence. Nothing lasts forever, I guess.
That was the original press release and now just shy of 17 years later Yahoo! has unceremoniously closed the doors and turned out the lights in all of it's chat rooms. Yahoo! chat no longer exists. My Yahoo! account is about 15 years old. I remember creating my first screen name in AOL not long before that. My exwife used to babysit some young girls and one of them was sitting on my lap watching everything I did like always. I let her choose my screen name. She said "Uncle" because that's what she called me. After a little coaxing for her to pick something other than my real name she finally came up with the word skinny. I guess I was skinnier 15 years ago. So I typed uncleskinny and it didn't fit. The box had a 9 character limit. I dropped one of the n's and became uncleskiny. The name migrated to Yahoo! not long after that and 15 years later the account still exists. That little girl would be about 20 or 21 by now probably with no idea that an uncleskiny still floats around the internet.
So uncleskiny floated around the local chat rooms for a couple of years basically making fun of what everyone else was talking about and then I got an invitation from a young woman to join another Yahoo! chat room. It was kind of a weird invitation it said something like "I'd like you to come chat in my regular chat room but be nice. These people are my friends." I think my response was "Ok but I'm not making any promises." Surprisingly the room was mostly full of teachers and professors from all over the world. These people were actually having intelligent conversations. This became my regular chat room for well over 10 years. I've rarely used Yahoo! chat in the last few years though. The old crowd from that chat room is mostly gone and I would enter that chat room maybe once every few months just for appearance's sake.
I got a message earlier in the week from another chatter telling me that Yahoo! chat is closed. She told me some of the chatters from that room have migrated to another chat client which I should install. That was kind of surprising since, like I said - I almost never chat anymore. I haven't decided if I'll bother installing it yet.
It still seems odd that Yahoo! chat is gone. It's like a neighbour or coworker leaving that you weren't really very good friends with anyway but they've been around forever so you still notice the absence. Nothing lasts forever, I guess.
