Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s story, from its inception in 1994 to its newest top boss in 2012 and acquisitions in 2013, was shared by The Street in a video report.
Silicon Valley veteran Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) was founded in 1994 at Stanford University by Jerry Yang and David Filo who were then taking up post-graduate degrees in electrical engineering. Though not mentioned in the video by The Street, the first version of the site was named “Jerry and David’s guide to the World Wide Web”.
According to The Street, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) has an exclamation mark in its name because Yang and Filo found out that the name “Yahoo” already belonged to another company.
In 1997, the web portal and search engine bought email service Four11 which later became Yahoo! Mail. Though not mentioned in the report, the same year marked the company’s foray into chat, classifieds, travel and sports. The company got 25 million users in the U.S. in 1997 and launched their main service in Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Fast forward to 2005 and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) bought image hosting site Flickr for up to $25 million. Yahoo! 360 also launched that year as well as Music Unlimited and Messenger with Voice. Interestingly, this also marked the company’s official strategic partnership with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA). Yahoo! and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) also announced the interoperability of their instant messaging communities that year.
In 2008, the company downsized to the tune of 2,800 positions. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) also courted Yahoo! this year and made an offer of $44.6 billion, a sum the company refused.
In 2012, Yahoo! welcomed a new Chief Executive Officer and President in the person of Marissa Mayer, a former Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) vice president.
2013 marked the acquisition of Tumblr by Yahoo! for $1.1 billion, The Street said. However, this was not the largest acquisition by the company as it reportedly bought Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion. The site operated more than 50 web properties to date.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) shareholders includes John Thaler’s Jat Capital Management which reported about 8.85 million shares in the company by the end of the second quarter.
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