Yahoo!

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Type:	Public
Founded:	USA, 1994
Founder(s):	Jerry Yang, David Filo
Headquarters:	Sunnyvale, California
Country:	USA
Products:	Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Babel Fish, Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Music
Employees:	13600+
Revenue:	US$ 6.324 billion (2010)
Website:	yahoo.com
Blog:	Explorer Yahoo! Blog
Facebook:	Yahoo! Facebook
LinkedIn:	Yahoo! LinkedIn
Twitter:	@YAHOO
Key People
Roy J. Bostock, Chairman Carol Bartz, CEO

Yahoo! is a public corporation that offers a multitude of Internet services to users all around the world. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. Yahoo! is known for its services and products such as search engine and web portals.

A website created by David Filo and Jerry Yang and named as “David and Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web” became Yahoo in 1994.^[1]

History of Yahoo!

• In January 1994, two individuals named Jerry Yang and David Filo founded the company Yahoo!
• On 18 January 1995, the domain name yahoo.com was created.^[2]
• In April 1996, an IPO was launched by Yahoo! with 49 employees^[3].
• In September 1997, Yahoo acquired Net Controls^[4] from which Yahoo! Search was derived.
• In October 1997, Yahoo acquired Four11 and its web service mail was called Yahoo! Mail.^[5]
• In 1998, Yahoo! acquired Classic Games, Sportasy, Vaiweb, Webcal, Yoyodyne and hyperparallel.
• In 1999, Broadcast.com, Encompass, GeoCities and Online Anywhere were acquired.
• On 31st August, 2000 eGroups was acquired by Yahoo!^[6] from which Yahoo! Groups was derived. In the same year Arthas.com, MyQuest and Kimo were also acquired.
• Yahoo! began to use Google’s search results in 2000 and started to work on its own search technology.
• In 2001, LAUNCH Media, Sold.com and Kimo were acquired.
• In 2002, Inktomi Corporation and Hotjobs.com mergerd with Yahoo!.
• On 14th June, 2003 Yahoo! acquired Overture Services, Inc.^[7] and the derived product was Yahoo! Search Marketing.
• In 2004, Yahoo! began to use its own technology for searching the net.^[8]
• 2005, Yahoo! acquired another 10 companies; including: Verdisoft, Ludicorp, Stadeon, TeRespondo, Dialpad, blo.gs, Konfabulator, Upcoming.org, Whereonearth and del.icio.us and various products like Flickr (from Ludicorp), Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! voice, Yahoo! 360°, Yahoo! Local etc were created.
• 2006 was also a major year as Webjay, SearchFox, Meedio, Jumpcut.com, Adlnterax, Bix.com, Kenet Works and Wretch were acquired.
• On 17th September, 2007 Yahoo! acquired BuzzTracker^[9] and derived Yahoo! News. in the same Year Rivals.com, MyBlogLog, Right Media, Zimbra and Blue Lithium were also added.
• Foxy Tunes, Inquisitor and Maven Networks were acquired in 2008.
• On 22nd June, 2009 Yahoo! acquired Xoopit^[10] and derived Yahoo! Mail from it. Maktoob.com was also added in 2009.
• Yahoo! acquired citizensports.com, Associated Content, Koprol and Dapper in 2010 and has acquired Spreets and IntoNow as of 25th April, 2011.

The stock prices of Yahoo! rose to high values and it enjoyed huge demand in the market until the Dot-Com Bubble.

Products & Services

The products and services offered by the Yahoo! are uncountable. Each of the service offered by the company has been designed in such a manner that users like it greatly. The following are the services and products offered by Yahoo!

Storing Personal Information

Yahoo! maintains record of information of users browsing the websites owned by the company. It was observed that the company maintains data warehouse that helps it in retaining information for long span of time. Even the search requests made by users at Yahoo! are stored for a few months before deleting them from the record of the company.^[11][12]

Content

The company delivers contents to users by collaborating with various content providers such as Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Answers, Yahoo! Games and a few more. In addition, website called Shine was launched by Yahoo! it was meant for women between the age of twenty-five and fifty-four seeking information of different types.^[13]

Mobile Services

Yahoo! entered the area of mobile services with Yahoo! Mobile. Users can enjoy various features using this service and they are instant messaging, mobile blogging, entertainment, ring tones, information services and a few more.

Communication

Yahoo! has established its name in the area of communication through services like Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. Both these services offered by the company are highly popular amongst internet users and offers various benefits to the users.^[14]

Advertising

Yahoo! has launched innumerous products in the area of advertising and advertisers can avail benefits from these products to the best extent possible. The first amongst them is Yahoo! Publisher Network where advertisements can be placed for improving the traffic to a website.

Small Business

Small business can be established by opening online stores at varied platforms offered by Yahoo such as Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, Yahoo! Business Email, Yahoo! Store, and Yahoo! Domains.

Yahoo! Meme

This is social service similar to sites such as Twitter and Jaiku.^[15]

Yahoo! Next

Here users can find services and products to be launched by Yahoo! in coming days. All the services mentioned in this section are under beta testing and users can give their feedback by using the services. It helps Yahoo! greatly in knowing how the users would welcome the new service or product being designed at the company.

Yahoo! BOSS

BOSS stands for Build your own Search Service. It is Yahoo’s customizable search service which lets you display the results of your search in the format you want. The most amazing feature about Yahoo! BOSS is that you can add your own image thumbnails to the search result page. You can also hide those pages which you would never want to see in your search result page.^[16] BOSS provides you with an opportunity with the help of which you can access Yahoo’s investments in indexing and crawling, powerful infrastructure and relevancy and ranking algorithm. It is a platform for next generation.^[17]

Yahoo! Koprol

Indonesia’s primary social networking site which is location based, Koprol, was acquired by yahoo quite recently. Since then, it has seen around 20-fold increase in the number of people using this site. It has a large number of members from America, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. But almost 80 to 90 percent of its users are from Indonesia. It is now known as Yahoo! Koprol. It has been successful in creating around 3000 business profiles which are mostly medium or small sized business enterprises with the help of its feature called “Koprol for business” launched in February. Some of the interesting features of Koprol are “People Finder”, “Onboarding”, “Hovercard”, “Hot-Tags”, “Koprol Stamp”, etc.^[18]

Y Connect

Y Connect is a tool built by yahoo to track users around the internet world in a better way. The purpose is to provide more modified advertisements so that the advertisers can get better options to target upon. A user can register and then log in into websites with just a click on the yahoo button provided by them. As they log in, all the things that they do in the website is shared with yahoo and can be used for advertising in a better way.^[19]

Yahoo! Messenger

One of the longest established and VoIP client, Yahoo Messenger has a lot of powerful features for its users. You can drag and drop, import contacts from IM, social networking sites and other web accounts of your friends who are a yahoo messenger user. You can also see videos and pictures that your friend posts in a public URL in the chat window provided. The latest, YM 10 has a few visual enhancements so that you can do video chatting. You can also see updates from your pals in the Tweaks window which is used as a newsfeed. So YM is a feature rich, easy to use chatting tool which is continuously improving.^[20]

Acquisitions

Yahoo!’s acquisition process has not stopped since it started acquisition in September 1997, the first being added into the cart being Net Controls (September 1997) and latest being IntoNow (April 2011). It has acquired 63 companies till April 2011, some of which are given below:

• Net Controls
• Four11
• Classic Games
• Sportasy
• Viaweb
• Hyperparallel
• Encompass
• MyQuest
• 3721 Network Software Co.
• Kelkoo
• eGroups
• Kimo
• LAUNCH Media
• Inktomi Corporation
• Oddpost
• Stata Labs
• Stadeon
• Ludicorp
• WUF Networks
• Maven Networks
• MyBlogLog
• SearchFox
• Yoyodyne
• Online Anywhere
• Verdisoft
• Webcal
• TeRespondo
• Kenet Works
• Jumpcut.com
• Xoopit
• Koprol
• IntoNow

Awards and Recognitions

• Silicon Valley Power Energy Innovator Award
• Flex Your Power Award Winner in Media and Education Category^[21]
• Corporate Responsibility Officer's 10 Best Media — Ranked #1 Environment Corporate Citizen^[22]
• Fortune's Most Admired Companies 2008^[23]
• PETA's 5th Annual Proggy Awards for Most Vegetarian– and Earth-Friendly Corporate Cafeteria^[24]
• South Bay Water Recycling Award

References

External links

• Yahoo!