Marissa Mayer, bring Yahoo! Messenger public chat rooms back: Users

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Ever since Marissa Mayer took charge of Yahoo!, several changes were brought about in the multi-national Internet corporation. Yahoo! has acquired ten companies ever since Marissa Mayer took charge as CEO in July 2012.

The full list includes: Stamped, OntheAir, Snip.it, Alike, Jybe, Summly, Astrid, GoPollGo, Milewise and Loki. These acquisitions, according to Mashable, are part of Mayer's three-step plan to bring top engineering talent back to Yahoo! in order to innovate on the product side, boost user engagement and eventually attract more advertising dollars.

Apart from acquisitions, .Marissa Mayer took another decision, which doesn't seem to have gone down well will Yahoo! users. On December 14, 2012, all public chat rooms on Yahoo Messenger were shut down as part of a series of features being changed. ''We have decided to discontinue several Yahoo! product features. This will enable us to refocus our efforts on modernizing our core Yahoo! products experiences and of course, create new ones,'' Yahoo! had said in a web post.

Although some users agreed with the move as it put an end to 'spammers', 'hackers' and 'paedophiles', several others wrote to CIOL, on how Yahoo Messenger public chat rooms could be brought back with changes. They suggested that Yahoo Messenger public chat rooms should be made a paid service to eliminate mischief makers from the platform. ''Yahoo Chat Paid Service = No more bots and better security. Let's just pay for it. Require credit cards so that people that don't have one can't chat!'' says Sam on CIOL.

''I would pay every month to keep Yahoo chat! It's a good idea so that people that don't have a credit card (mostly the bad people), won't have access to it. Please YAHOO!!! Let us pay you guys monthly to bring the service back,'' says a CIOL reader Derreck who agrees with the above suggestion.

However, another user says that credit cards too will not be able to stop hackers and paedophiles from logging in to the service. ''Your suggestion may be right when it comes to keeping a check on people without credit cards; however, that wouldn't stop paedophiles and S@# addicts from logging in (they could be desperate enough to pay to be able to chat with anyone online) But yes, I do agree that a lot of unwanted rubbish can be avoided by making the service paid. Sad that everything has to be made paid to keep a tab on things,'' says Shreya on CIOL.

That said, as of now, it does not seem like Yahoo! has any plans of bringing Yahoo Messenger public chat rooms back. Users are even criticising Marissa Mayer for taking this decision. ''This is a wrong move. They must try to weed out bad guys who were marketing porn website through yahoo public room. Yahoo public chat was a good platform where people could communicate without much struggle. Marissa Mayer is only thinking about bad side of it,'' says Geevar.

''I think it's a sad thing that Yahoo decided to do this to the very people that keep them so popular. I have stopped some things with Yahoo myself. But I'd love to see the chat rooms come back,'' says Alan on CIOL. ''Although the rooms were being used for the wrong reasons the system could have been fixed and/or monitored rather than completely removed. There's really no place like it and there's a black hole now in the Internet... Please bring back the Yahoo chat rooms :-('' says Elaine.

But, there are a few users who say ''I support CEO Marissa Mayer on discontinuing public chatrooms. I have seen the bad publicity that it has given this mega corporation. I know a lot of people lose out on chatting with friends, meeting new people. But you have to look at this from a business view which may be hard for some users. I personally have seen a considerable drop in the market last year. Its share fell to 12.8 per cent. I hope Yahoo! can bounce back and with Marissa Mayer I believe it is possible,'' says River.

After going through these messages, what do you have to say? Should Yahoo Messenger public chat rooms be brought back as a paid service? Or, do you agree with Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer on this move? Do let us know.