This is the story of a nine year old love affair that started way back in 1998.  And it still continues to this day.  There are times when i quit the affair in disgust, but some how,  came back, because she was always sensitive to my feelings.  I had seen her grow, take different shapes, different avtaars and evolve with the times.  And it continued well after my marriage,  with even my wife, getting pally with her.  Well she in this case is Yahoo Messenger or Yahoo Chat.

1998-2000

My first encounter with Yahoo Chat. Those were the days, the net was still taking root in India. Browsing charges were expensive at 50-60 Rs per hour, and the only ISP was BSNL’s creaky service. Broadband was something that still did not figure in the Indian lexicon. In my place, there was a cybercafe that ran, and thats where i used to log in.  Being the hardcore techie that i am, i was dying to get on to the internet. And  Yahoo Chat was one of my first experiences.  I signed up with an id called scorpio5300024 and for around 2 hours was dragged into a totally new world. A world full of lingo like A/S/L, LOL, BTW, JK.  A virtual world where i ran into females from places like the US, Australia, UK, Phillipines, and some far away places like Slovenia, Sweden.  A place where i made friends, had some intimate encounters and virtually where i led a second life.  Most of the females i met were from US followed by the Phillipines.

2000-2002

A couple of months after marriage i had to leave for Chennai, due to a job. My wife would join me later. That was the time when i chatted with my wife late into the night.  The chatting caught on with my parents, and soon every one in my household learnt to use it. Till then most of the chats were in the chat room. Around this time the Messenger came into picture. It was better in the sense that, you did not need to spend time in the chat room with irritating IM’s popping up and disturbing you. You could chat at peace with your friends or family members. Also you could avoid unwanted pests, by setting your status as invisible. Voice chat became popular around this time.

2003-2006

I was not  really much into using Yahoo Chat, for starters i was working for larger companies, where chatting was blocked. But still would chat after work hours with some of my friends. That was the period, when cams became popular, and you could actually see the person with whom you were chatting.  Also the colorful smiley’s in order to convey your feelings. By now chat lingo had become part of day to day conversation. I used the Messenger a lot again in 2005, when my wife had gone to her parents place for second delivery, that was the time i would use the cam a lot. You could also set the environment of your messenger. But by themselves the Yahoo Chat rooms sucked. Populated with bots, who would ask you to click on a link that would show their vital assets for a price.

2007

 Well faced with competition from Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger is hitting back with some innovative changes

You do not need to download the Yahoo Messenger now, they have come up with a beta version where you can directly access the Messenger from any web browser. Sure way of beating the restrictions your company places on chatting, but as of now, many folks are using it, and i am sure, one fine day, it will be blocked too. As of now, enjoy chatting there.

Now this is something that is really good, of late many of us have stopped entering Yahoo chat Rooms because of bots.  Yahoo Messenger has now come up with a technology, where before you are entering a room, you are redirected to a URL, where your status is verified, to prevent auto signing. Only after verification, you are redirected to the chat room. This i guess should take care of the bot menace once for all.

Following complaints of misuse, the personal chat rooms have been blocked, and users can enter only the regular chat rooms. You cant create your own chat room now.

For me as such Yahoo Messenger has been a great tool. It helped me to meet new people.  It helped me to keep in touch with my family.  And the best part it has been changing and evolving with the times.  My only issue, is banning of adult chat rooms, they were real fun.

Now regards complaints of misuse by pedophiles and teenagers being lured away, i repeat my matchstick theory. You can use it to burn a stove or light a pyre.  We dont have the maturity to handle technology properly, we allow ourselves to be made suckers off, we dont use our discretion and most important we rarely use our brain.  But we find all those difficult i guess, so we adopt the easier way, Ban Technology. If Bans is what makes a paradise, then Taliban ruled Afghanistan ought to have been a heaven. As for me, my 9 year old affair with Messenger still continues and shows no signs of stopping.

Software version:

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