The Day Yahoo Died
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 7:57AM 
For those of us who switched to Google many years ago, it may seem as if Yahoo died long ago. It didn't. At least not until today. Yahoo and Microsoft have announced a search partnership. Yahoo will handle ad sales, and Microsoft's bing will become the new search engine for Yahoo.
While Yahoo will continue to exist for email and as a portal (whatever that means these days) the core of the company, the thing that made it an early web juggernaut is gone. I can't say there's a terrible amount of sentimentality in this for me. It's hard to imagine gathering future generations to enthrall them with tales of putting a search parameter in a box and getting results. I do remember the quaint way you could submit URLs you would want indexed in the early days. And believe it or not, I can remember the first time I used Google instead of Yahoo. It was in the computer lab my freshman year of college, Spring, I believe . (The year is not important!) I'd heard about google a few times in tech stories, so I gave it a try. A nearly blank screen with a search box appeared. I entered my search terms, and results came back. "This is just like Yahoo," I naively muttered... But again, this isn't like a fond story of an innocent childhood moment, or life-changing decision.
Rather, it feels simply like one of the last vestiges of the another internet time is gone. AOL, you're now the sole link to that time, and sadly, I don't think many people will mourn your eventual passing either. Who knows, in five years we might be forced to write again about the day Google died (or at least Google Search), replaced by Bing. For now, I'll stick with Google. I mean Bing is just like Google! Besides, I'm feeling lucky...
Microsoft, Yahoo, bing, search engines Permalink
Reader Comments (3)
Wow! Finally Microsoft has reached a deal Yahoo for an internet search partnership. Will the newly announced deal between giants Microsoft and Yahoo be a good thing? Got to wait and see. But atleast Microsoft and Yahoo deal is straightforward and not complex at all and ofcourse, the negotiation talks have been going for long. I was just curious to know all the past negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo so collected all the articles and links (more than 200) related to the current merger and the previous events or negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo. If you are interested check the link below.
http://markthispage.blogspot.com/2009/07/saga-of-microsoft-and-yahoo-from-2007.html
Yahoo search of "Bing"
"You could go to Bing. Or you could stay here and get straight to your answers."
:'-)
Let's face it Yahoo really had no choice but to take the MS money. Yahoo search is and may still becoming a footnote in tech history. Yahoo even with (MS) Bing can't catch or match Google. Together they make up only 25-30% of the search market. The bottomline this deal should push Google to improve it's search engine and services. Once that happens combine with Google billions this deal could become another Time Warner AOL deal.