Yahoo Messenger chat rooms service: Was it a boon or bane?

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Global Internet company Yahoo took a tough decision last month. The company decided to discontinue various product features and services from December 14. Some of the most popular products and services that included Yahoo! Messenger public chat rooms and messenger Pingbox were discontinued.

Although the decision was taken by the company to refocus its efforts on modernizing core Yahoo! products and to create new ones, Yahoo has drawn a lot of ire from users of Yahoo Messenger public chat rooms. Regular users of the chat rooms, who are upset by this move by Yahoo, has stated that Yahoo chatrooms were not just being used for chatting and making friends, but for other reasons like building business contacts as well.

''pls...its a very good platform to grow business and meet businessmen and contacts from various parts of the world..'' says a CIOL reader. While another user comments that Yahoo Messenger was the only way for him to socialise in his country. ''I dunno What did they think by crapping on our tiny social lives, But for me, it's the end of the world. In some countries, chat rooms were the only way to meet people specially for minorities . What the hell are we supposed to do now?'' says another user on CIOL.

Another user talks about how he met his life partner on Yahoo Messenger chat rooms. ''Well Yahoo chat room been part of my life for over last 13years. I came across many good people here and have establish real life friendship with them. And most importantly I married someone whom I met through this Yahoo chat room only. So please bring back with more updated features for benefit of the masses,'' says the user.

'I have lost many friends since yahoo chat closed I am in a wheel chair and yahoo chat was my lifeline to the world. I will never use yahoo again,'' says another user.

However, there are always two sides to a story. There are several users who says that closing Yahoo Messenger public chat rooms was the right thing to do as it was constantly being spammed. ''Quite honestly, the chat rooms were complete garbage anyway. 99% of them were overrun by bots constantly spam advertising internet porno links and ridiculously generic posts about being female. All I have to say is good riddance,'' says a CIOL reader. ''Yahoo chat rooms are not safe these days, so it's better to be closed for a couple of months,'' says another user.

Some users even suggest that Yahoo Messenger chat rooms could be reopened and users should be asked to provide an ID proof while joining the services. ''I think yahoo should avail the chat room services back to their loyal users BUT Not before taking some stringent actions against the spammers n the scammers. Yahoo should come up with some strict rules to keep minors away or atleast safe from the sex maniacs. Even if that means its gonna take yahoo corp. a few months time from now to fix it all & have a safe & secured program in place.. Yahoo should work on these criterias n then i don't see no probs in keeping the chat room services ON for the public like before,'' says a user.

Despite the decision, Yahoo has seen a climb in its revenue. Yahoo Inc forecast a modest uptick in revenue for the current year as it revamps its family of websites. Yahoo said that revenue, excluding fees it pays to partner websites, will range between $4.5 billion and $4.6 billion in 2013, implying an annual growth rate of 0.7 per cent to 3 per cent, according to a report on Reuters.

However, after seeing both sides of the issue, what do you have to say? Were Yahoo Messenger public chat rooms a boon or a bane? Should the service be brought back? Do let us know.