THE DECLINE OF YAHOO

Yahoo was a leading company in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, possibly one of the best web services available.

- Bidisha Mitra

However, if you mention Yahoo now, you’d have to ironically Google it. Over a decade ago, it was holding its own against Google and Microsoft. With its peak valuation at $125 billion in 2000, it must have been hard to predict such a tech titan facing a downfall this unfortunate.

What exactly happened to Yahoo? Yahoo now serves as a wake-up call to other companies to step up their innovation and create better strategies. Our article has broken down their story and mistakes.

WHAT IS YAHOO?

In January 1994, Jerry Yang and David Filo created Yahoo (often stylised as Yahoo!) as a small project. This small project was initially named, “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web,” with the vision of a directory-style search engine.

FUN FACT:

The full form of “Yahoo” is “Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle” or “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”

Their services include– a web portal, Yahoo search engine, personalised page My Yahoo!, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, and Yahoo! Native. These were all active and regularly visited in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

Google: In 1998, Yahoo had the chance to buy Google for a mere $1 million and yet refused the offer. In 2002, Google’s offer raised to $5 billion which Yahoo countered for $3 billion, an amount the former rejected. This was one of the biggest mistakes Yahoo ever made as Google’s worth now sits at more than $1 trillion.