Remember Yahoo in 1998?

We’ve all been following Microsoft and Yahoo over the past few weeks as they dance around a potential acquisition offer. I believe it is best that both players remain relevant in the Internet search space. I love Google and prefer them as my search engine, but I think a viable competitor for GOOG helps us all in the long run.

It is easy to forget that Yahoo WAS the dominant online search player just a few short years ago.
I remember in the mid-to-late 90s (back in my student days) when I would browse the ‘What’s New’ directory at Yahoo and it would take a mere 15 minutes to browse through all of the new sites for that day.

They still offer this ‘feature’ at http://dir.yahoo.com/new/, but I don’t have the time or the inclination to keep abreast of every site added to Yahoo’s lexicon. I would imagine that you would have to dedicate a much larger chunk of time these days.

Somewhere in California in the mid-to-late 90s, Google co-founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page were busy planning a better way to search and organize the Internet’s information. The Internet has never been the same since.

The fate of Yahoo is out of my hands, yet I do hope the service stays relevant for years to come.

Dan Naden
Naden’s Corner