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Mozilla ‘Failed’ Bet on Yahoo Takes Spotlight in Google Trial

Mozilla ‘Failed’ Bet on Yahoo Takes Spotlight in Google Trial

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In 2014, Mozilla Foundation made a significant decision to change the default search engine in its Firefox browser from Google to Yahoo. This bold move was based on Yahoo’s promises of a better search experience for Firefox users. However, in hindsight, Mozilla’s bet on Yahoo can be considered a significant failure, resulting in a degradation of the user experience.

The Rise and Fall of Mozilla's Yahoo Experiment

Mozilla’s Chief Executive Officer, Mitchell Baker, candidly admitted the failure of the Yahoo partnership during a videotaped interview from 2022, which was presented as part of Google’s defense in the Justice Department’s antitrust trial. This decision to switch to Yahoo’s technology was initiated under the leadership of Yahoo’s CEO at the time, Marissa Mayer, who pledged to make a substantial investment in Mozilla.

However, as Mitchell Baker emphasized, “That bet failed.” The once-promising search experience Yahoo was supposed to provide to Firefox users began to deteriorate. This significant shift in default search engine providers marked a unique case in the browser industry, making it a focal point in the ongoing antitrust trial between Google and the Justice Department.

The Broken Promises of the Yahoo-Mozilla Partnership

Mozilla ‘Failed’ Bet on Yahoo Takes Spotlight in Google Trial

Image Source: theedgemalaysia.com

One of the primary reasons behind Mozilla’s decision to switch from Google to Yahoo was the financial incentive. Yahoo agreed to pay Mozilla a minimum of $375 million, surpassing Google’s annual offering of $276 million. Additionally, Yahoo promised to reduce the number of ads and offer less user tracking compared to Google. These promises were appealing to both Mozilla and its users.

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However, as time passed, Yahoo failed to live up to its commitments. Instead of providing a better user experience with fewer ads and reduced tracking, Yahoo began showing more advertising, ultimately diminishing the quality of the search experience for Firefox users. This shift in Yahoo’s approach not only affected Mozilla’s revenue but also resulted in a less desirable browsing experience for Firefox users.

In conclusion, Mozilla’s experiment with Yahoo as the default search engine in Firefox stands as a glaring example of a promising partnership that went awry. The decision to make a significant bet on Yahoo, based on their promises, ultimately resulted in a failed venture, leading to a deteriorated user experience and raising questions about the reliability of search engine partnerships in the tech industry. This case serves as a significant point of contention in the ongoing antitrust trial, with both Google and the Justice Department using it to support their respective arguments.

Yahoo groups

Yahoo is Deleting all the Content on Yahoo Groups on 14 December

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Yahoo has been a famous platform for sending and receiving emails, so has been its Yahoo Groups site. There was a large audience on the platform, and it was used like discussion forum, similar to Reddit. But in recent times, as Yahoo has been facing survival issues, its subsidiaries have also been coming near to the end.

In the same regard,
Yahoo has just announced that it is going to restrict is services on
Yahoo Groups and will remove all its content by 14 December this
year. Though people were still active on the platform, and some
people have just registered to it, it failed to remain popular among
them.

Yahoo revealed the news through a blog post, and it advised the users that they start saving their content as the company will be removing all the content on the discussion board site on 14 December. Another important date in this regard is 21 October, from which people will not be able to upload new content on the site. After the company deletes the content, the users will need to request to be a member of the groups as all the public groups will become private. Though the groups will be visible to them, they will not be able to see the content in them until they become a member of the groups. The users will only be able to interact with the groups via email.

Yahoo groups

“The Yahoo
Groups site will continue to exist, however, all public groups will
be made private or restricted. Any new group members will need to
request an invite or be invited by an admin. Admins will still be
able to manage various group settings, though some functionality will
be limited,” wrote Yahoo.

The content that
Yahoo will be removing includes Files, Polls, Links, Photos, Folders,
Calendar, Database, Attachments, Conversations, Email Updates,
Message Digest, and Message History. So it would be better for the
users that they start saving their content asap.

According to Yahoo, one can simply download the files and other things from the groups they have joined. And, the other way to get all the content is to request their group’s data through their Yahoo account on Yahoo, and Yahoo will prepare the data for download and intimate them through email. The users can also get the content by directly going to the Verizon Media’s Privacy Dashboard.

Flickr Plans to Soon Dump its a Decade Old Yahoo Login System

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The photo-sharing website Flickr has announced that it no more will have the same old Yahoo’s login system. After a long decade, the company has finally decided on dumping the tedious feature that none of its users is interested in using.

flickr
Image Source: siliconindia.com

In 2007, Yahoo had acquired Flickr, and only after two years of the acquisition, the company installed a Yahoo login for Flickr. In the pre-Instagram era, Flickr was at the top of the all photo sharing websites, but the users always complained about the Yahoo login system, as nobody used their Yahoo mail Id otherwise and often used to forget the passwords.

In April 2018, SmugMug acquired Flickr, and since then it has been working on the new login system for the Flickr users. Even due to the massive data breach it faced, which affected its three billion users, badly, Flickr was receiving the requests for a new and secure login system.

As of now, Flickr might not be as influential as it used to be, but still, there are many loyal Flickr users that are continuously posting and sharing pictures on the platform. So the new login system is the biggest news for them, and the platform can expect more user engagement in the future.

Also, Flickr has extended the dates for its free account users to download the pictures, now rescheduled to March 12 from Feb 5. Last year, the company had announced new plans for the users, in which the users with premium accounts would pay a $50 as the monthly charge, and the ones with free accounts will only be able to download 1000 photographs from the platform.

“We hope you love this new, simpler login experience,” Flickr said in a statement. “We’re still hard at work on performance and stability improvements across the site, but we’re delighted to check this key item off our members’ wish lists.”

The new login system is still under the process until then the users need to use the same Yahoo account for Flickr. But as soon the new login system comes into effect the users will have to register themselves with a new account and password on Flickr.

Jerry Yang : An Internet Entrepreneur & Founder of Yahoo!

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Destiny and hard work play a vital role in the success of a person. Not neglecting the hard work, to achieve something big, you have to be at the right place at the right time. The Taiwanese-American Internet entrepreneur, Jerry Yang had his circumstances, that brought him from Taiwanese to California, when he just knew a single word from Engish, i.e. Shoe. It took him only three years to master the language. As soon he became proficient with English, his aptitude proved his excellence in other fields too.

Early Life

Yang was born on 6 November 1968, as Yang Chih-Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan, to an English professor mother. He lost his father at the age of two. Yang was just ten, when his mother, along with him and his younger brother, moved to San Jose, California, in 1978. His mother taught English to the other immigrants, and the two children grew with their grandparents.

Jerry Yang
Image Source: South China Morning Post

Yang joined the United States Educational System in San Jose, where he excelled at every other subject. His remarkable performance made his teachers to put him in advanced classes for gifted students. He attended the Stanford University, where he earned the bachelor’s as well as the master’s degree in electrical engineering, just in four years. In 1989, at the university, he met his future partner and a fellow Stanford student, David Filo.

Founding Yahoo!

During the time, Yang was studying at the Stanford University, the internet was making its base in the city of San Jose. Yang became familiar with this new technology and decided to learn more about it. In 1994, he along with his friend David Filo created a web directory, that included the names and addresses of other websites. The two, named the website, as Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. After a few months, it became popular and was renamed as Yahoo Inc.!! Within a few months, the website gained 100,000 unique visitors.

With the increasing popularity, Sequoia Capital became its first official investor by investing $2 million in the venture. Yang and Filo becoming the Chief Yahoo appointed Tim Koogle as the first CEO of the company. Within one year of Yahoo’s launch, it gained the attention of other venture capitalists too, gaining more and more fundings.

In 1998, Yahoo was the most popular starting point for web users, and by 2004, Yahoo had its own search software. In 2007, Yang replaced the second CEO of Yahoo, Terry Semel and served as the CEO for two years. In 2012, Yang left Yahoo.

Share in Alibaba

In 1997, Yang had gone for a trip to China, where he met the founder of Alibaba; Jack Ma. At the time Jack Ma was working as a government employed tour guide and had taken Yang to the Great Wall of China. Their meeting included a conversation based on the development of the web. And after a few months, Jack Ma started working on Alibaba.

In 2005, Yang made Yahoo buy a 40% stake in Alibaba paying $1 billion. Yahoo, under Yang’s direction also bought the assets of Yahoo! China, for $700 million. Later, there was an alteration in the shares, as Yahoo sold a small portion of it, later buying another portion from the Alibaba stakes, again.

Yang as an Angel Capitalist

In 2015, Yang started his capital venture named as AME Cloud Ventures. According to another venture capitalist, Rob Solomon, Yang was “a great founder, evangelist, strategist and mentor”, having “created the blueprint for what is possible on the Internet. Till date, Yang has funded over 50 startups including Tango, Evernote, Wattpad, Vectra Networks Inc.

Personal Life

Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, whom he met during his student-exchange program to Japan, in 1992. The two are currently living in Los Altos Hills, California. Yang is the member of the boards of many technology companies and is also involved in philanthropy.

Yahoo Back into the Chat Business with its New Yahoo Together App

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As they say, “It’s never too late”. Yahoo has followed this phrase by launching its new messenger app. Yahoo launched ‘Yahoo Together’, a messenger app, on Thursday, shutting down its older Yahoo Messenger, due to the reduced usage of the app. Yahoo Together is a Yahoo and Oath’s product that it was testing a few months ago, as the invite-only Yahoo Squirrel app. Now, the Squirrel app is out of beta, and Yahoo has launched the same as the Yahoo Together app.

Even, after the data breach happened, on Yahoo’s messenger, in 2013, Yahoo has gathered some courage to enter back into the business. Yahoo and Oath, together have made an effort in the field of chatting, when there are so many messenger apps already available online.

Yahoo Together
Image Source: 9to5mac.com

The Yahoo Together is similar to other chatting apps, except providing more organized experience for the group chats. The app is having way more similarity with the enterprise level chat apps like Slack than any other simple chat apps. But, the app is specially designed for the personnel groups, like family and friends. The look and feel, as well as the custom reactions below the messages, seems to be directly adopted from Slack only.

Like Slack, it supports private and public group chats, that has been named as Topics. One can easily share audio and video files, on these group chats. The Activity View feature of Yahoo Together shows the user every time his/her name is mentioned in the chat. Like any other chat app, the user can mute the notifications for a particular group or a person.

The only feature that differentiates the app from other chatting apps is the smart reminder feature that notifies the user about different events, or of any particular message in the group, by sending the group members a notification about that message. Also, there is no voice calling feature as well as no third-party app integration, available in the app.

The app is created by the Yahoo’s old Communications Team, but with better functionality and features. Although with the chat apps like What’s App, Facebook Messenger and Slack, already available online, the launch of another chat app from Yahoo have raised many questions on its success, in such a competitive environment, Yahoo’s effort is commendable. But, the app surely needs a lot of improvements to survive in the market.