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Imagine saying this sentence today, “The most popular index on the World Wide Web is Yahoo.”
When it understood the Internet like no other.
And when we might have imagined big, maybe global celebrations to mark its 30 birthday.
The still-relatively young Facebook got far more press for its 20th anniversary on February 4.
The wild thing is that Yahoo was not a true index.
Yahoo’s browse tree style of search was more akin to a library’sDewey Decimal systemthan a powerful knowledge base.
Like things were grouped and you could dive down a multitude of rabbit holes to find what you want.
It was never my favorite “search engine,” and mostly for that reason.
I foundAlta Vistamuch more effective (Sorry, butGooglewas still years away).
There was, though, no denying Yahoo’s power and dominance.
It was such a big deal that PCMag’s parent company Ziff Davis partnered with Yahoo to launchYahoo!
I know, a physical print magazine about the cool stuff on the Internet sounds wrong.
The publication lasted through some of Yahoo’s best years until the dot-com bubble burst in 2002.
I still remember when Yahoo signed a deal in 2000 to let Google power all searches on its site.
It was just the first in what would be decades of business maneuvers to grow and build the service.
But it does not own a space in my psyche like Google orApple.
Still standing
Yahoo may have lost all its sexiness but it remains an online force.
By some measures, the Yahoo.com homepage is the most popular homepage on the Internet.
It’s hard to reconcile the Yahoo of today with that clarion call,“Yahoo!
“,of the 90s.
Most everyone online and off could toodle the three-note yodel.
There were billboards with the once iconic logo.
It’s a shame because it’s not just that Yahoo!
If anyone paused to celebrate or even recognize Yahoo’s milestone, I didn’t see it.
And that’s just sad.
No one is too big to fail or be all but forgotten.
