Yahoo Pager dropped in 1998 as Yahoo’s first shot at instant messaging, letting you ping friends in real time before texting was even a thing. It was super basic at launch—just chat and alerts—but by 1999 it rebranded to Yahoo! Messenger and started stacking features like file sharing, custom emojis, and voice chat. The early 2000s saw steady updates: version 5.0 in 2002 added webcam support, and by 6.0 in 2004 you could send SMS straight to phones. For a lot of us, that little yellow smiley icon was the sound of the dial‑up internet coming alive.