For the generation of Iranians now turning 30, Yahoo Messenger was their only form of rich media communication in the days of dial-up Internet, and the entire generational cohort was addicted to the service. Now after more than 18 years of service, the antiquated messaging service is shutting down on August 5 citing flat demand by consumers who have long since moved to mobile messaging apps like Viber, WhatsApp and now Telegram. According to Venture Beat, internationally the old messaging system was mainly used in recent years by oil traders who used the service to gossip on commodity prices. Yahoo said, “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. “We intend to continue our focused efforts on the new Messenger, with a goal of delivering the best experience to our users.”
