Is Yahoo Chat Doomed?

July 24th, 2006 - Yahoo shut down it's user created rooms a little more than a year ago in June of 2005 due to a swirling contraversy from child predators using the chat rooms to lure children. The backlash against Yahoo resulted in major advertising firms such as PepsiCo Inc. and State Farm, the life blood of Yahoo's revenue, pulling ads off of the popular online community.

No one disagreed that Yahoo had to do something to stem the flood of online child predators, but according to many ex-yahoo chat users, pulling the ability to create rooms with user created themes all together was like squashing a fly with a sledge-hammer. One ex-Yahoo chat user asked "Why should everyone suffer for the activities of a small percentage of users?" going on to say "Surely with the resources Yahoo has they can find a way to keep the user-created rooms option while keeping the child molesters out".

For the first few month after Yahoo pulled the user-created rooms from it's chat format many had hope that Yahoo would bring the service back. After all, Yahoo's official statement regarding the matter is "We are working on improvements to the service to enhance users’ experience and their compliance with our terms of service. Yahoo condemns the use of Internet tools for illegal activities." However, a full year later with no word of bringing the user-create rooms back many ex-Yahoo chatters have given up completely and state that they are simply not interested in using the new Yahoo chat format.

One petition that has been going around states "The currently open Yahoo! chat rooms are full of irate Yahoo! chatters, demanding to know what has happened to their rooms. Many groups maintained chat rooms within Yahoo, and with the closing of the user created chat rooms, users are migrating to the remaining Yahoo! operated chat rooms. Chat rooms quickly became filled with "ad bots" and users have complained about being constantly messaged with advertisements. Other complaints include the inability to find friends from the users regular chat rooms, and unwanted messages of a sexual nature."

While many chatters simply stopped using Yahoo chat all together, some decided to try and designate certain Yahoo created rooms as the new "user" rooms. You can find a list of these at http://www.yahlist.net/, a site designed to let people know what rooms are designated as what. This idea seemed to have promise, however it was only a temporary fix at best, and many people seem to be giving up on this idea as well.

It's unfortunate that the user-created rooms are no longer available given the rising tensions around the globe right now, without the option to create a room theme such as "People Still In Lebanon" or "Discuss The War Between Israel & Hezbollah" there is no place for people that would like to discuss the issue or talk first hand with those in the middle of the conflict. This is truly unfortunate since this is the very thing the internet held so much promise for, a way for people a world away to connect directly with each other and better understand each other's point of view. This is just simply something you can't do in Yahoo's generic room themes of "Romance" or "Computers".

With no glimpse of light on the horizon for Yahoo bringing this service back, it seems that Yahoo Chat will simply continue to whither away until there is no Yahoo Chat left. Given the rapidly decreasing amount of people still using Yahoo chat, it seems that without user-created chat rooms Yahoo chat will be irrelevant or offline in a matter of months.

- Written By Daniel Johnson, Editor of Poker Tips From The Pros