On Saturday the officials of the internet company announced that the old version of Yahoo messenger which was launched in 1998 under the name of Yahoo Pager, will not be available from August 5. The Yahoo messenger app became obsolete in 2015 after Yahoo came with up a newly redesigned, cross-platform version of the app. In a post the Yahoo chief architect Amotz Maimon wrote while today, we provide basic interoperation between the legacy product and the new Messenger, we encourage all of our users to complete their transition to the new Yahoo Messenger as we will no longer support the legacy platform as of August 5, 2016.
In the redesigned version of the messaging service we find that it includes features such as instant photo sharing, support for GIFs, and also an option to unsend messages. Jeff Bonforte, Yahoo’s senior vice president of communication products and engineering, said in a statement that we are excited to introduce the next generation of Yahoo Messenger. It has long been one of our core products but it was time to redesign the product from the ground up and reinvest in one of the most important products in our history as a company.
The new messenger will also be available on Android and iOS besides being available on desktop and mail versions. On September 1st the company will also shut down its Yahoo Recommends service which is a tailored widget that provides relations of related stories to the reader.