It was AOL and Yahoo Messenger which hooked me to the Internet almost two decades ago. Currently the market is crowded with hundreds of Messaging apps trying to make a place for themselves. Among these Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Snapchat, Viber etc are ruling the roost. This time around, Yahoo claims that it has designed the app from ground up – something that was long pending. Let’s check out what the new Yahoo Messenger promises and if it delivers. Yahoo seems to have taken a leaf from the Flickr’s book and integrated an improvised photo sharing app. Unlike WhatsApp which caps the number of photos, you can send hundreds of photos at a single go with Yahoo Messenger. The Photo drawer is yet another feature that allows users to view all the photos shared in a horizontal fashion. Yahoo has also incorporated the unsend feature which will help you redact messages even after sending it. This feature strikes resemblance with the self-destructing messages that made Snapchat gain popularity. Yahoo has integrated a GIF search option which will let GIF lovers to search through a repository of images and use them. Like button had been bought to existence by Facebook but now many other platforms inclusive of Twitter and LinkedIn have incorporated the same. That being said, Messengers in general don’t have a like button feature, you can of course send a like emoticon, but not like the photo directly. Yahoo has also been experimenting with login methods, a year ago they introduced the OPT login which essentially sent out an authentication code via the SMS for every login. The new Account Key login will beam a notification with a pass key every time users need to login thus eliminating the need to store or remember the password. When asked whether the users need a Yahoo account to use the new Messenger, Austin Shoemaker, Yahoo’s Senior Director of Product Management told Technology Personalized that one can create an account with their phone number as well So technically, your phone number will still be part of the Yahoo account, and not like how WhatsApp works. At one time, Yahoo Messenger monopolized the Internet Messaging market, but was put on a back burner only to be resurrected at a stage when everyone else is dominating.
