Yahoo! Chats Opening Again, But At What Cost?

[tansqrx 0]

It appears that there is a good possibility that the Yahoo! chat rooms will be back online sometime in the future but at what cost? Yahoo announced on Thursday [http://aunty-spam.com/] that only users 18 or older will have access to the chat rooms. In addition the “Teen” chat channel has been closed and the chats will now be patrolled for sexually explicit content regarding minors [http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3556196]. This comes after an agreement with both Kansas and New York’s Attorney General Offices to control the content in Yahoo! chat rooms [http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ the Yahoo! chats back will be a big step in getting Yahoo! back to normal. If you have not been in the rooms lately, they are quite simply DEAD. During the traditionally busiest times when at one time you could simply sign on and have unlimited conversations, now you are hard pressed to find a halfway decent conversation for hours. I don’t know how much Yahoo! depends on their chat rooms for revenue, but I am sure that the financial people have been screaming bloody murder the past few months. With the new no under 18 restriction, I have a feeling that Yahoo! is cutting off 80% of their users. Not to say that people will not just lie about their age, but this may create a huge bump in the road for Yahoo! From what I can see, teens are the primary users of Yahoo! for one simple reason, price. Most of the other sites charge money for their services which is an age deterrent in itself. Should Yahoo! just give up and close its doors now that the new restrictions are in place?In somewhat related news, Yahoo! and Microsoft unveiled plans to merge their user base [http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/]. Similar to Trilian, now Yahoo! Messenger and Microsoft MSN users will now be able to IM each other form their native applications.

[kaputnik 0]

I remember the time I'd first started off with the internet.. it was distinctly a Yahoo experience.. my very first e-mail ID and then it was Yahoo chat... that was in around the middle of 1996, and the wires were buzzing.. My friends and I had just headed down to Pune (India's very best college town) for our college and the after our initial days of running around getting through with all the admissions related hulabaloo.. we all fell right into goose-step with the very latest craze to hit the city - Internet Cafes.. Other than food, rent and petrol.. every little bit of change used to be spent at these Cafe's .. and most of the time it was on Yahoo Chat.. discovering the world through the internet was exciting, and meeting people from varied backgrounds, ages and from different countries was excellent.. I was still using Yahoo chat till about 1999 by which time there was a whole bunch of spamming online and then there were the 'not so fiendly people' who'd discovered that they could curse a wider audience through chatrooms, when all the fun of being online on a chat went right out of the door. Even now, the thought of heading back to chat rooms seems, at the very best a lame task since I have the sinking feeling that the 'free' and freedom of using Yahoo chat is lost.. I will though give it a shot from time to time.. It's always good to make new friends..

[Sarah81 0]

The whole bloody thing with Yahoo! chat rooms is stupid. I'm not saying that sexual predators or whatever should be left free to do whatever they want (that's just stupid), but where in the WORLD are the kids' PARENTS? What parent in his or her proper and sane mind allows his or her minor child to roam around the entire world (which is basically what you're doing when you get online - you can chat with people from anywhere and they can send any files they want or type whatever they want) without supervision? What sort of parent doesn't sit and explain to their children that not all chat pals are good people, and that said kid needs to be discerning? Gee, maybe a little parental involvement would help, instead of the group of people who want to sit and complain that it's all Yahoo!'s fault.Okay. Must stop going on tangents. But wow, I feel a little better now.

[spacewaste1405241471 0]

I think topic fits better this category Tans...As it's something new .I think the whole removal of chatrooms was rediculous though. But yahoo is more then likely just trying to save face.Also, from now on Tans, please post "what's new" topics inside this section.I'm only moving your most relevant thread. As moving the rest would be kinda spammy since some are old.Hope you get the idea though.

[Shadow X 0]

The Yahoo chat rooms, I think, were never really that good. If Yahoo is deciding to put on a restriction for the chat rooms then they probably won't be as popular as previous times. Personally for me, I'd rather use instant messenger programs than use online chat rooms.

[plot 0]

There are several children chat rooms, just google them up and parents can sign there children up there, and there is loads of secrurity with windows xp, for example a child cannot download anything unless he/she is givin administrator rights, internet explorer also has parental guards which filter on certain levels of violence, nudity ect...The internet is a very safe place for kids who have parents that care...as for yahoo, it isnt what its all cracked up to me in my opinion, i dont really like it i dont use it much, the games i play and using instant messengers is all the chatting i need to do, so i really dont care for chatrooms, its also a bad place for sick minded adults and not the best place to pick up a date.

[twitch 0]

Yahoo! In my opinion is too basic on the layout and design. They don't support e-mail formatting in Firefox and are generall rubbish.I have never like Yahoo!, even the messenger is buggy at the best of times.For them to start charging for the chat, will only push people more to things like Pogo, ICQ and such.

[CroSpartacus 0]

Does anyone know if Yahoo will give back the "Europe" chatroom under Teens? I used to go on that and enjoyed it. Then I noticed it's not there anymore. Are they going to be bringing back the User chatrooms anytime soon?