Post by broncosman on Jul 6, 2020 3:25:25 GMT
From 1997 - 2001, Yahoo used to run these moderated Q&A sessions with celebrities called Yahoo Chat Events, where anyone with a Yahoo account could ask the given celebrity a question, and after it was approved by a moderator, then it could be answered by the celebrity, all in real-time chat. It was like a predecessor to Reddit AMAs. Apparently they ended up hosting about 350 events per month(!), with the more notable ones being the rock band Hanson, 3 of the Beatles(Paul,George and Ringo),astronaut John Glenn from outerspace, and interactive live news coverage of the Columbine shooting - as in, people were able to send in questions which would be relayed to and answered by news reporters on the scene, as the shooting was taking place.
Are there any recordings or screenshots of any these events - anywhere? They appear to be completely lost,strangely, despite obviously being significant at the time. In fact, there's barely even any mention of Yahoo Chat Events left on the internet - the best hits I could find were the Wikipedia page for Yahoo Messenger, and a small section in this one old tech guide book meant to serve as an intro to the internet - books.google.ca/books?id=B2lZ8WGdE6YC&pg=PA230&lpg=PA230&dq=yahoo+chat+events&source=bl&ots=8B_1j0qEno&sig=ACfU3U15_H_zGLs1KfnAzmH8LwgI8xebvQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizz_yLubfqAhX0ITQIHTtRBO4Q6AEwCXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=yahoo%20chat%20events&f=false
EDIT - Found a transcript of the event done with Hanson: thd.danitza.org/media/chats/yahoo072198.html
Are there any recordings or screenshots of any these events - anywhere? They appear to be completely lost,strangely, despite obviously being significant at the time. In fact, there's barely even any mention of Yahoo Chat Events left on the internet - the best hits I could find were the Wikipedia page for Yahoo Messenger, and a small section in this one old tech guide book meant to serve as an intro to the internet - books.google.ca/books?id=B2lZ8WGdE6YC&pg=PA230&lpg=PA230&dq=yahoo+chat+events&source=bl&ots=8B_1j0qEno&sig=ACfU3U15_H_zGLs1KfnAzmH8LwgI8xebvQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizz_yLubfqAhX0ITQIHTtRBO4Q6AEwCXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=yahoo%20chat%20events&f=false
EDIT - Found a transcript of the event done with Hanson: thd.danitza.org/media/chats/yahoo072198.html