The Day Yahoo Died

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...

Sweet Apple Ad on Yahoo! Games

Check out the sweet Apple advertising on http://games.yahoo.com/ It would seem at the time of this post the ad (previously appearing at the top of the page) is not currently running. Hopefully it will be posted again so you can see the page elements shift along with the iPod Touch in the ad below.

The advertising is based on the original iPhone / iPod Touch gaming commercial seen here:

MobileMe: Is it worth it?

So awhile back I posted about .Mac and the value for what you're getting. Apple has now announced .Mac will be making the migration to MobileMe. We lose some features in this process like iCards, but we get 2x the storage and we get push email, calendar, and address book.

I ask the same question . . . is it worth it??

The answer depends on what's important to you. If you don't care about push and don't need to live in a NOW NOW NOW world, MobileMe doesn't seem like a compelling offering.

If you do care about push and want/need to live in a NOW NOW NOW world, MobileMe is probably the best and least costly solution. You can get free push email from Yahoo! but you don't get calendar or address book with this offering. If you want to pay for exchange (push) hosting there are many offerings out there. The least expensive solution that specifically calls out support for the iPhone is about $11.00/mo. This totals $132 for just the push service.

The verdict: If you want push MobileMe is a great solution that also gives you online storage and Apple iLife integration. If you don't care about push . . . still not worth it.