Some of the 90s kids are going through severe nostalgia today as the first popular instant chat application Yahoo Messenger bid a final goodbye. At a time when the internet too was not as popular, Yahoo Messenger made chatting facility accessible with this service. All you needed was an email id and you were set to log in and chat with random people. The concept of chat room was a rage back then. As years passed on, new sites and services took over and Yahoo Messenger, lay ignored. The iconic messaging application was in service for 20 years and has shut down.

This service made us use short-forms which were so cool back then. We made email-ids just so we could enter the chat rooms. We had random friends along with the known ones. Logging on to Yahoo Messenger was a favourite thing to do once we returned from our schools or classes. There is just so much nostalgia with our very first introduction to chatting with the help of internet.

Let us look at 5 features of Yahoo Messenger which we loved and will miss terribly!

Chat rooms:

The Yahoo Chat room (Photo credits: Twitter/ArsalanA99)

Yahoo Messenger introduced us to the concept of public chat rooms. They were an entertaining form of conversations. One could make new friends, share ideas or have like most random of conversations on these group chats. Today most of us mute the group chats on WhatsApp, but Yahoo Messenger chat rooms were fun to be engaged in.

Emojis: 

The Yahoo emojis (Photo credits: Twitter/vXBaKeRXv)

How we love using smileys in our chats even today! Yahoo Messenger gave us so many options of emojis to choose from. They had a wide catalogue of emojis and stickers to choose from. We were so used to using them that we knew the exact keys to represent a particular emoji.

BUZZ!:

The Yahoo Buzz! feature (Photo credits: Twitter/twitwitniaaron)

The best and annoying feature at the same time was the BUZZ! Remember the sound it made when you sent it across? There is so much nostalgia attached to this. When someone did not reply for a long time, you'd BUZZ! them. But it got annoying when someone did it to you.

Avatars:

The Yahoo avatar (Photo credits: Twitter/kotomicosplays)

We spent so much time deciding upon how your avatar would look. With many options to choose from, like the skin tone, the background, the clothes, Yahoo Messenger avatars were another indulgence altogether. The customization made available by Yahoo, cannot be beaten by any amount of filters and stickers available today.

Video calls:

When the internet itself was a new thing to explore, video calls were obviously fascinating. The ability to see the other person while on a call, irrespective of the VGA quality was such a delight. With specially designed applications made available today for video calling, Yahoo Messenger gave it all in one. No doubt it remained a favourite among us.

Do you'll remember using all of the above? Other than these features, there was the ability to put up a status, also check if your friend is online, we could see their status activity, all of it was too new and thus very attractive. There was also a stealth mode available which let us sign in without being visible to anyone. At a  time when it was our first introduction to chatting over the internet, all of these features were too cool! Every notification was important, changing your avatars a few days later was important, and to be part of random conversations was a privilege. Now we have Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp giving us all of these but Yahoo Messenger will remain special. Goodbye Y! M.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 17, 2018 07:08 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).