The Rise And DownFall Of Web Giant Yahoo
Yahoo’s 22-year run as an independent company is over, marking the end of an era for one of the earliest web giants — and one of the few to maintain some level of relevance as the internet evolved. Verizon acquired Yahoo’s core business for $4.83 billion.
“The acquisition of Yahoo will put Verizon in a highly competitive position as a top global mobile media company, and help accelerate our revenue stream in digital advertising,” said Lowell McAdam, Verizon CEO and chairman, in a statement.
So here the 22 year long journey of Yahoo in brief:
1994: David Filo and Jerry Yang launch Yahoo—an acronym for Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle—as a catalog for managing websites.
1996: Yahoo, valued at $848 million, goes public.
2000: Yahoo hits its highest valuation at $125 billion thanks to the dot-com boom.
2002: Then CEO Terry Semel puts in a $3 billion bid to acquire Google. The rising search player turned down the offer.
2005: Yahoo invests $1 billion in Chinese e-commerce player Alibaba, a 40 percent stake.
2008: Yahoo turns down a $44.6 billion acquisition deal from Microsoft aimed at building a competitor to Google.
2011: Yahoo pushes into web video, launching Yahoo Screen—a hub of original content including NBC’s Community. Yahoo Screen is shut down in January 2016.
2012: The company poaches Google exec Marissa Mayer as CEO to help turn around the struggling internet company as revenues from display advertising continue to slip.
2013: Mayer acquires hot social network Tumblr for $1.1 billion—her first big acquisition—with the aim of reaching a millennial audience.
2014: Mayer launches 11 digital magazines across food, tech, sports and lifestyle. In February 2016, seven of the verticals—health, parenting, food, makers, travel, automotive and real estate—are shut down.
2014: Yahoo acquires mobile app analytics company Flurry and programmatic video player BrightRoll to build up its ad-tech stack. Pre-Verizon, rumors swirl that AOL wants to buy Yahoo to build a programmatic, data-driven platform.
2015: The company signs a deal with Google to place some ads and search features on Yahoo search listings. It also partners with the NFL on the league’s first online-only livestream, broadcasting a game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars at London’s Wembley Stadium.
2016: Tumblr partners with video apps YouNow, Kanvas and YouTube to power livestreaming on the site. Unlike similar efforts from Facebook, Twitter and Google, Tumblr plugs into existing video apps, so it doesn’t not need to build a platform to power the technology.
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