Yahoo Quietly Debuts New Messaging App On iTunes

For a while now, there have been rumors that Yahoo was developing an overhauled version of its once popular messenger app. But recent events indicate that those rumors turn out to be true because the company debuted (and without much fanfare) the new and revamped edition of its Yahoo Messenger mobile app. Now taking the moniker Yahoo Livetext - Video Messenger, the new app has been released on the Hong Kong iTunes App Store.

The Yahoo Livetext - Video Messenger mobile app has actually been live since early this month. As its name suggests, the app is more than just your typical mobile messaging app. As a matter of fact, it comes with a unique type of video text messaging, which mixes your standard text messages with videos but sans audio feeds. The aim is to give users the ability to see the reactions of the persons they are texting with in real time while they are communicating via chat conversations.

In the early days of Yahoo Messenger, the chat messaging platform was widely used by people everywhere. But as more instant messaging services came out in recent years, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, just to name a few, Yahoo Messenger’s popularity began to wane. This forced Yahoo to start developing something that will either replace its Yahoo Messenger service, or else improve on it. 

It has not always been easy for the company. It had to scrap its early efforts in trying to create a better messaging platform after a number of versions failed to impress during the internal testing phase. But along the way, Yahoo was wise enough to make some acquisitions in order to get more brains and more resources in coming up with a new messaging product. For instance, just last year, Yahoo bought MessageMe, a mobile messaging app, and assigned the team behind it to work on Yahoo’s internal messaging tools. On top of that, Yahoo also acquired the services of none other than Pradeep Elankumaran, the co-founder of photo sharing app Kicksend, half a year ago.

These recent moves certainly have produced results in the form of a live mobile app that is now available on iTunes. But why release the app quietly and in the Hong Kong iTunes App Store? It is likely that Yahoo is taking its new Yahoo Livetext - Video Messenger mobile app for a public test run. And once the Yahoo team iron out the bugs and finished some tweaks, the new Yahoo messaging app may be due for a louder and wider release in the next few weeks or months.