Yahoo for a while was becoming the world wide web, messenger, clubs, search, email and games all engaged with on a single identity, even turned down an offer to buy Google. Then it packed it all away and went home.
Yahoo Japan is actually a completely separate company.
Yahoo itself is still extremely popular in the US, just with a different demographic than we (the sort of people on the fediverse) regularly interact with. Their sports, finance, and news sites are some of the most popular on the internet. I don’t think it’s particularly relevant in the web search space these days though, and hasn’t been for a long time.
I think we don’t hear much about it because it has found a niche and is staying within it. It’s profitable, but not on an “infinite growth forever” trajectory so it rarely makes the news. Honestly kind of respectable.
The web used to be so small that Yahoo! had real humans doing the categorizing.
A few years ago while cleaning out my late grandmother’s house, I found a physical book which was just a listing and description of various websites.
I was a dmoz editor for a bit. They created the directory that Yahoo used on their site. Kind of wish directories came back.
Directories and webrings
Webrings are still a thing. I see them from time to time.
I can’t remember the last time I did. Have one in mind?
Here is a whole directory of them as a starter. Many retro pages from this directory but many sites are active and get regular updates.
Indie Web Database
Yahoo for a while was becoming the world wide web, messenger, clubs, search, email and games all engaged with on a single identity, even turned down an offer to buy Google. Then it packed it all away and went home.
Ive heard it still has a titan presence in Japan though
Yahoo Japan is actually a completely separate company.
Yahoo itself is still extremely popular in the US, just with a different demographic than we (the sort of people on the fediverse) regularly interact with. Their sports, finance, and news sites are some of the most popular on the internet. I don’t think it’s particularly relevant in the web search space these days though, and hasn’t been for a long time.
I think we don’t hear much about it because it has found a niche and is staying within it. It’s profitable, but not on an “infinite growth forever” trajectory so it rarely makes the news. Honestly kind of respectable.