Yahoo! No more

 If you started using Internet during late 90's or early 2000, then probably, your first email address had a domain name of Yahoo.Back then, gmail did not exist, at least, I was unaware of it. There is a competition between Google and Yahoo search engines. I had friends who used to advocate Yahoo search engine like anything over Google. I was a newbee, so, my acquaintance with internet started with friends suggestions, and that is how I landed with my first email address, opened on Yahoo. Then, Yahoo started spreading its wings. And we started getting into confusions. Whether, our address is yahoo.co.in or yahoo.com? If someone didn't receive a mail, then probably it was because it was sent to something@yahoo.com instead of something@yahoo.co.in. God only knows, whether there was any such issue or not. \

In those days, only easier way to access internet was through Netcafe. I had a friend running netcafe back then. There was a scheme started by Yahoo for netcafe people. Number of yahoo email accounts opened from their netcafe would help them earn them some extra money from yahoo.  I don't know, if this was correct or not. But my friend made us sit and open such email accounts from his netcafe. The deal for us was, if we open such accounts, then he will make arrangement to play the combined mode of "Need for Speed " game. I remember creating lot of email addresses. It got saturated and then we started making random logins. I probably made of a series of addresses with names like hut1@yahoo.co.in; hut2@yahoo.co.in .... upto ........hut250@yahoo.co.in.

Apparently, it did not work. My friend did not get any money for opening these many email addresses. But, we got to play NFS for free for over a month.

Another interesting memory of yahoo, is about yahoo chat. It felt really fascinating, that just sitting at one computer, we can instantly chat with anybody anywhere around the world. I remember my first experience of chatting. Apparently, I was online (I did not know), and one of my friends dropped a chat sitting somewhere in Chicago. The chat window popped up, and I pretty much got scared, thinking, something went wrong, and closed the browser window, shut down computer and was wondering what did just happen!!

That was the time, when Yahoo was pretty much our guide to internet. It introduced us to the world of internet.
From my point of view, the decline of Yahoo!, started somewhere, with the entry of Orkut, Facebook and Gmail. These things came with some interesting packages, which were really attractive. They had lot to offer to us. Somewhere down the Yahoo chat lost it sheen. Gmail addresses were created, FaceBook page were made. All the important emails started coming to Gmail, and recently, I was instructed to login to my Yahoo account or it will be closed. Well, I thought to login once, but couldn't remember the password. Tried a bit to recollect, but then gave up.

Today, morning, I heard the news of Verizon taking over Yahoo! for a mere 4.8 billion $. A drop from its value of 100 billion$. 

Its sad to see some big companies die down infront of you like this. I remember, writing a similar post for one such big company in camera "KODAK".

Then, there was NOKIA, which was taken over by microsoft.

And now this, Yahoo!

These names have made a mark on our mind. Now, seeing them dying in front of us is little painful. But that is how difficult and competitive, the outside world. Where do we as individual, then stand!