History of Yahoo!
On March 8, 1997, Yahoo! acquired online communications company Four11. Four11's webmail service, Rocketmail, became Yahoo! Mail. Yahoo! also acquired ClassicGames.com and turned it into Yahoo! Games. Yahoo! then acquired direct marketing company Yoyodyne Entertainment, Inc. on October 12, 1998. In January 1999, Yahoo! acquired web hosting provider GeoCities. Another company Yahoo! took over was eGroups, which became Yahoo! Groups in June 2000. On March 8, 1998, Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Pager, an instant messaging service that was renamed Yahoo! Messenger a year later.
Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo ID" which also allowed access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail, where users could be automatically notified when they received new email. Yahoo! also offered PC-to-PC, PC-to-Phone and Phone-to-PC service, file transfers, webcam hosting, text messaging service, and chat rooms in various categories.