How is babby formed?
March 22, 2017 1:44 AM Subscribe
They thought the Internet would become a Tower of Babel, but for a while it became a Tower of Babby.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:22 AM on March 22, 2017 [20 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:22 AM on March 22, 2017 [20 favorites]
I used Yahoo Messenger right up until it was discontinued for use on macOS maybe 18 months ago? I only had one or two people left active in my contact list by the end, but we've struggled to find a new connective resource since it closed. AOL Instant Messenger is closing down its access to 3rd party apps at the end of this month, and I've been in active negotiations with the few people I still connect with through there for new venues, and it appears I'm going to have to take on 3 new things to make up for this one going away.
I loved Yahoo! when it was in its early days. The two thrills of the days in the early web were creating a web page and then submitting it to Yahoo and Alta Vista to see if it got added. Then at some point it stopped being a curated library of weblinks (understandable that it was impossible to maintain), so I stopped using its search.
I still had a Y! homepage that I looked at for a long time after that as my default web page and I loved it. Then they changed that. It had a classic mode for a while but then that went away. So I changed my default page.
I still have a Y! email address but haven't used it in maybe a decade. I wonder what that inbox looks like right now? I doubt I could even log in! So I've quit using that.
Oh, and didn't they kill Yahoo Screen? I watched things on that.
What exactly is it that Yahoo! does these days, anyway? Other than slowly dissolve?
posted by hippybear at 2:31 AM on March 22, 2017 [11 favorites]
I loved Yahoo! when it was in its early days. The two thrills of the days in the early web were creating a web page and then submitting it to Yahoo and Alta Vista to see if it got added. Then at some point it stopped being a curated library of weblinks (understandable that it was impossible to maintain), so I stopped using its search.
I still had a Y! homepage that I looked at for a long time after that as my default web page and I loved it. Then they changed that. It had a classic mode for a while but then that went away. So I changed my default page.
I still have a Y! email address but haven't used it in maybe a decade. I wonder what that inbox looks like right now? I doubt I could even log in! So I've quit using that.
Oh, and didn't they kill Yahoo Screen? I watched things on that.
What exactly is it that Yahoo! does these days, anyway? Other than slowly dissolve?
posted by hippybear at 2:31 AM on March 22, 2017 [11 favorites]
Oh wait, don't they have Katie Couric doing interviews? Are those any good? I've never watched any of them. Her interview with Maron was pretty excellent, maybe I'll watch those until Y! dissolves that far.
posted by hippybear at 2:33 AM on March 22, 2017
posted by hippybear at 2:33 AM on March 22, 2017
Remember when Sarah Palin's Yahoo! email account was hacked?
John McCain's campaign condemned the incident, saying it was a "shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law"
Good times. And it wasn't super sophisticated state sponsored intelligence agencies. It was some kid and the password was something ridiculous like her son's name.
posted by adept256 at 2:50 AM on March 22, 2017 [8 favorites]
John McCain's campaign condemned the incident, saying it was a "shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law"
Good times. And it wasn't super sophisticated state sponsored intelligence agencies. It was some kid and the password was something ridiculous like her son's name.
posted by adept256 at 2:50 AM on March 22, 2017 [8 favorites]
There is a guy on YouTube who (presumably) makes a lot of money by just recording videos of him reading Yahoo questions out loud. Like How is Prangent Formed
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:19 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 4:19 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
This is classic. When my spousal unit and I announced the pregnancy of our first child I did a reread of the link (A)Ha(W)O posted. Using that guys intonations and speech style.
(It helps that I had the thing memorized prior to the announcement).
posted by Twain Device at 4:26 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
(It helps that I had the thing memorized prior to the announcement).
posted by Twain Device at 4:26 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Once the Verizon merger has gone through, what remains of Yahoo's assets will be renamed Altaba
Oh come on. The least they could do is name it Altaba!
posted by flabdablet at 4:34 AM on March 22, 2017 [7 favorites]
Oh come on. The least they could do is name it Altaba!
posted by flabdablet at 4:34 AM on March 22, 2017 [7 favorites]
Great name, like something you'd alt-tab away from.
posted by Dr Dracator at 4:44 AM on March 22, 2017 [36 favorites]
posted by Dr Dracator at 4:44 AM on March 22, 2017 [36 favorites]
. I wonder what that inbox looks like right now? I doubt I could even log in!
Especially since Dmitry changed your password.
posted by spitbull at 4:53 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Especially since Dmitry changed your password.
posted by spitbull at 4:53 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
I only had one or two people left active in my contact list by the end, but we've struggled to find a new connective resource since it closed. AOL Instant Messenger is closing down its access to 3rd party apps at the end of this month...
Hippybear...AOL, it turns out, is merely disabling MD5-based authentication. If a third-party app uses MD-5, it's not going to connect. Pidgin has already been updated to work with AOL, and Adium should be updating shortly.
FWIW, I use Adium for messaging and, when Yahoo went away, my wife and I switched to the XMPP/Jabber protocol and have been very happy with the move.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:55 AM on March 22, 2017
Hippybear...AOL, it turns out, is merely disabling MD5-based authentication. If a third-party app uses MD-5, it's not going to connect. Pidgin has already been updated to work with AOL, and Adium should be updating shortly.
FWIW, I use Adium for messaging and, when Yahoo went away, my wife and I switched to the XMPP/Jabber protocol and have been very happy with the move.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:55 AM on March 22, 2017
It says something about the seemingly endless death-spiral of Yahoo! that the most interesting thing about the article was the link to this thing about former Myspace "scene queens."
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:00 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:00 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Friendster's defining moment was when enemyster (now defunct) was created as a parody of it. One allowed you to build a social network, and the other allowed you to let people know how little you wanted to do with them - and then not deal with them.
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:02 AM on March 22, 2017
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:02 AM on March 22, 2017
My website's minimal home page loudly bears a "Yahoo Pick" button that links to the archived Site of the Day write-up. From 2005. My laurels, they're being rested upon.
What I really miss is Yahoo Games, particularly Canasta. It looked like crap, and when they finally updated the games, canasta was not deemed important enough, so it kept it's retro look until the end. Texas Hold Em was also a rollicking fun time.
Yahoo Groups also had a number of great collage groups, especially at the height of the ATC trading craze.
I know I'm making it sound like Yahoo just pulled the plug, but it's sad that a company with so much potential in so many areas is going to be remebered for what it ruined, and a silly meme.
link to this thing about former Myspace "scene queens."
Having basically zero MySpace experience, I was also very interested in this!
posted by Room 641-A at 5:15 AM on March 22, 2017 [5 favorites]
What I really miss is Yahoo Games, particularly Canasta. It looked like crap, and when they finally updated the games, canasta was not deemed important enough, so it kept it's retro look until the end. Texas Hold Em was also a rollicking fun time.
Yahoo Groups also had a number of great collage groups, especially at the height of the ATC trading craze.
I know I'm making it sound like Yahoo just pulled the plug, but it's sad that a company with so much potential in so many areas is going to be remebered for what it ruined, and a silly meme.
link to this thing about former Myspace "scene queens."
Having basically zero MySpace experience, I was also very interested in this!
posted by Room 641-A at 5:15 AM on March 22, 2017 [5 favorites]
Another way in which Yahoo actively makes the internet worse: When I type a question into Google or Duck Duck Go, worse-than-useless Yahoo Answers links inevitably pop up in the first few results.
posted by ejs at 5:19 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by ejs at 5:19 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yahoo, wow, I remember that.
Back before the people who founded Google figured out how to make keyword searching at least kinda work Yahoo was king with the ability to browse categories and find what you wanted. I've always wondered if a category type setup might be useful or possible in the modern era, a way to browse and stumble upon (see what I did there?) content you'd otherwise miss.
I was reminded of Yahoo a few days ago when I installed Firefox on a computer at work and foolishly typed "Acrobat Reader" into the address/search bar without switching to Google search instead of the default Yahoo search. A full page of ad links to shady sites, often with subtly misspelled versions of "Adobe" greeted me, I had to scroll all the way to the bottom before I found the actual link I was looking for.
I mean, I get that they're desperate for cash, but surely someone at Yahoo corporate realizes that when 90% of the first page of search results are garbage and blatantly virus laden ads that people are going to abandon their product.
Presumably they're at the pump and dump stage of their corporate death spiral, but at this point I wonder if even ruining their page for the worst and most shady of advertisers is even making them much money.
posted by sotonohito at 5:52 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Back before the people who founded Google figured out how to make keyword searching at least kinda work Yahoo was king with the ability to browse categories and find what you wanted. I've always wondered if a category type setup might be useful or possible in the modern era, a way to browse and stumble upon (see what I did there?) content you'd otherwise miss.
I was reminded of Yahoo a few days ago when I installed Firefox on a computer at work and foolishly typed "Acrobat Reader" into the address/search bar without switching to Google search instead of the default Yahoo search. A full page of ad links to shady sites, often with subtly misspelled versions of "Adobe" greeted me, I had to scroll all the way to the bottom before I found the actual link I was looking for.
I mean, I get that they're desperate for cash, but surely someone at Yahoo corporate realizes that when 90% of the first page of search results are garbage and blatantly virus laden ads that people are going to abandon their product.
Presumably they're at the pump and dump stage of their corporate death spiral, but at this point I wonder if even ruining their page for the worst and most shady of advertisers is even making them much money.
posted by sotonohito at 5:52 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yahoo! is one of the very few websites that's been around for as long as I've been aware of the internet, so there's that.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:58 AM on March 22, 2017 [8 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:58 AM on March 22, 2017 [8 favorites]
The only university assignment I ever completed was a very short essay on internet portals - I chose to write about Yahoo and I got 95% and a comment written in red pen sayíng 'very well done'. I have that essay in a drawer somewhere.
I was hooked on Yahoo's scrabble knockoff on their games page for quite some time.
That's all I can say about Yahoo (oh, and of course I still laugh at how is babby formed whenever it comes to my attention).
posted by h00py at 6:04 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I was hooked on Yahoo's scrabble knockoff on their games page for quite some time.
That's all I can say about Yahoo (oh, and of course I still laugh at how is babby formed whenever it comes to my attention).
posted by h00py at 6:04 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
In 1996 / 97 I had a side gig teaching people how to use the Internet. We taught them how to drill down through Yahoo's directory, and then we taught them how to keyword search with some simple Boolean logic with Alta Vista. The class participants were people that had just bought their first computer at WalMart, but were afraid to to turn it on. You'd be surprised how confusing Yahoo was to those folks. It seems obvious to us today, but it was anything but obvious in 1997.
posted by COD at 6:05 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by COD at 6:05 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
So I have a story about the height of Yahoo! decadence.
Somewhere around 1998, I was contacted by an agent of Yahoo! in my capacity as a music scholar with, for weird reasons, some expertise on the subject of yodeling. They were calling to ask me to judge the first ever Yahoo! Yodel Contest Finals, to be held in a glassed-in street level theater space Yahoo! then owned in NYC's Times Square under a giant flashing Yahoo faux-retro-neon sign that used to be a prominent feature in the Square. I was the academic expert judge.
There was another, who may even have recommended me, as a "celebrity" judge: Wylie Gustafson, famed yodeler and leader of the Wylie's Wild West Show band, who had recorded the "YaHOOOOhoo!" yodel for Yahoo! when they were nothing as a one-off session performance for which he was paid a flat rate with no residuals. A few years later, when Yahoo! was huge and that yodel was being heard on TV and radio ads all over the known universe, Wylie undertook legal action to gain some royalties off having become the most famous anonymous yodeler in the world. As explained to me, as a gesture of good faith (and in addition to enough settlement cash to buy a cattle ranch, or so I've heard), Yahoo! agreed to sponsor a yodeling contest over the web which Wylie would judge and which would somehow be webcast as I recall (this was way before that was a simple matter). I came in at the tail end, thousands of online submissions of every idiot and their best friend doing Wylie's signature "YaHOOO--hoo!" yodel, having been vetted through some sort of prior process into which I had no insight.
Anyway I smoked a ton of weed in preparation and put on a sharp suit, before I was picked up uptown in a stretch limo and driven to Times Square, shook Wylie's hand (also wearing a sharp Nudie-style suit, but he always did) in a photo op for the cameras, and then we sat and listened to half a dozen finalists perform live, both the Yahoo! yodel and a song of their choice with backing tracks. One of the finalists was the fucking Naked Cowboy before he got "big" (he was a godawful yodeler though, and he can't sing country for shit). A big crowd gathered on the street outside the window to wave goofily for the webcast.
I don't even remember the others or who won or how we decided, although I do remember having a good time talking to Wylie, whom I had met the year before this in an unrelated context at a performance at a Seattle festival where I had MC'd his performance (being known as a scholar of yodeling gets you weird gigs). I remember getting an obscene honorarium for the time ($1500) and a stretch limo ride back uptown after like 4 hours of auditory torture.
I don't know if they ever did a second annual yodeling contest or not, although that was the plan. Fucking Yahoo!, it sure took you long enough to die. But that was a fun day.
posted by spitbull at 6:09 AM on March 22, 2017 [132 favorites]
Somewhere around 1998, I was contacted by an agent of Yahoo! in my capacity as a music scholar with, for weird reasons, some expertise on the subject of yodeling. They were calling to ask me to judge the first ever Yahoo! Yodel Contest Finals, to be held in a glassed-in street level theater space Yahoo! then owned in NYC's Times Square under a giant flashing Yahoo faux-retro-neon sign that used to be a prominent feature in the Square. I was the academic expert judge.
There was another, who may even have recommended me, as a "celebrity" judge: Wylie Gustafson, famed yodeler and leader of the Wylie's Wild West Show band, who had recorded the "YaHOOOOhoo!" yodel for Yahoo! when they were nothing as a one-off session performance for which he was paid a flat rate with no residuals. A few years later, when Yahoo! was huge and that yodel was being heard on TV and radio ads all over the known universe, Wylie undertook legal action to gain some royalties off having become the most famous anonymous yodeler in the world. As explained to me, as a gesture of good faith (and in addition to enough settlement cash to buy a cattle ranch, or so I've heard), Yahoo! agreed to sponsor a yodeling contest over the web which Wylie would judge and which would somehow be webcast as I recall (this was way before that was a simple matter). I came in at the tail end, thousands of online submissions of every idiot and their best friend doing Wylie's signature "YaHOOO--hoo!" yodel, having been vetted through some sort of prior process into which I had no insight.
Anyway I smoked a ton of weed in preparation and put on a sharp suit, before I was picked up uptown in a stretch limo and driven to Times Square, shook Wylie's hand (also wearing a sharp Nudie-style suit, but he always did) in a photo op for the cameras, and then we sat and listened to half a dozen finalists perform live, both the Yahoo! yodel and a song of their choice with backing tracks. One of the finalists was the fucking Naked Cowboy before he got "big" (he was a godawful yodeler though, and he can't sing country for shit). A big crowd gathered on the street outside the window to wave goofily for the webcast.
I don't even remember the others or who won or how we decided, although I do remember having a good time talking to Wylie, whom I had met the year before this in an unrelated context at a performance at a Seattle festival where I had MC'd his performance (being known as a scholar of yodeling gets you weird gigs). I remember getting an obscene honorarium for the time ($1500) and a stretch limo ride back uptown after like 4 hours of auditory torture.
I don't know if they ever did a second annual yodeling contest or not, although that was the plan. Fucking Yahoo!, it sure took you long enough to die. But that was a fun day.
posted by spitbull at 6:09 AM on March 22, 2017 [132 favorites]
Yahoo was amazing back when my internet life first started. The Stanford-hosted repository was magical. I had an amazing curated Yahoo news page. I exclusively used their webmail. I exclusively used Yahoo Messenger. I loved their games section. I was a member of groups. And I still miss my Yahoo Avatar. (Bitmoji scratches that itch for me now.) Yet Yahoo systematically destroyed every good thing it came up with. I knew back when Yahoo tried to get their ads sold by Gannett news properties that the end was certainly coming for what was once my hands-down favorite Internet brand.
I see red when people reference the babby question (even here on enlightened MetaFilter, but not in this FPP because it's in the article) because dear God someone out there was so tremendously failed by family/education/whatever and was trying so hard to reach out to ANYONE to ask one of the most important questions any human should understand and we laughed and memed it.
posted by kimberussell at 6:16 AM on March 22, 2017 [10 favorites]
I see red when people reference the babby question (even here on enlightened MetaFilter, but not in this FPP because it's in the article) because dear God someone out there was so tremendously failed by family/education/whatever and was trying so hard to reach out to ANYONE to ask one of the most important questions any human should understand and we laughed and memed it.
posted by kimberussell at 6:16 AM on March 22, 2017 [10 favorites]
Wow time does funny things to memory. Turns out that was in 2003!
posted by spitbull at 6:16 AM on March 22, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by spitbull at 6:16 AM on March 22, 2017 [5 favorites]
I was once interviewed for Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. The actual newsstand magazine. The height of my 15 minutes of internet fame!
posted by wingless_angel at 6:17 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by wingless_angel at 6:17 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
Room 641-A: What I really miss is Yahoo Games
Wow, that just triggered a whole cascade of memories for me. I was briefly and intensely obsessed with Yahoo Pool. I'm terrible at pool and am more board-gamer than bar-gamer in real life, but something about the angles (Yahoo Pool would show you a little vector of where your ball was going to go) I found compelling and master-able. I distinctly recall being ranked as a Yahoo Pool player back in the day, while also knowing that nobody at my middle school would think that was at all interesting or cool.
posted by Zephyrial at 6:17 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
Wow, that just triggered a whole cascade of memories for me. I was briefly and intensely obsessed with Yahoo Pool. I'm terrible at pool and am more board-gamer than bar-gamer in real life, but something about the angles (Yahoo Pool would show you a little vector of where your ball was going to go) I found compelling and master-able. I distinctly recall being ranked as a Yahoo Pool player back in the day, while also knowing that nobody at my middle school would think that was at all interesting or cool.
posted by Zephyrial at 6:17 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
Are the Yahoo groups archived anywhere, by chance? One of my first internet experiences was participating in a group somewhere, but my memory is hazy on just what it was. I suspect it was Yahoo though, since it would have had to be something easy to stumble on.
I'd love to read through old posts if they still existed somewhere and I could find what group it was.
posted by aka burlap at 6:22 AM on March 22, 2017
I'd love to read through old posts if they still existed somewhere and I could find what group it was.
posted by aka burlap at 6:22 AM on March 22, 2017
I used Yahoo as a homepage for a long time, long after the point most people stoppped. I finally stopped using it as homepage after the election (all Trump, all the time, like all the other news).
Back in the day I played a game or two and used their chat. Never really used their search, except right at the dawn of time when it was a directory. Altavista and Ask Jeeves and later Ixquick were all better. Then of course along came Google and Yahoo was done.
My 'gotta give an email to sign up' email address is still Yahoo. I'll give that one up--I've had it since I was a young teen--when they make me and not before. That's about all that's useful to me from Yahoo itself these days (not counting Flickr, Tumblr, etc).
Oh and I went to school at a liberal arts school where our chant includes the line 'Deyump, deyatty, yahoo'. In a show of school spirit the upper administrators all had custom plates with a word from the chant. The story goes that the person who had the plate with 'yahoo' in it was offered a very large sum of money for it by one of the Yahoo founders. They never sold. Made me think a little more fondly of the school.
posted by librarylis at 6:24 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Back in the day I played a game or two and used their chat. Never really used their search, except right at the dawn of time when it was a directory. Altavista and Ask Jeeves and later Ixquick were all better. Then of course along came Google and Yahoo was done.
My 'gotta give an email to sign up' email address is still Yahoo. I'll give that one up--I've had it since I was a young teen--when they make me and not before. That's about all that's useful to me from Yahoo itself these days (not counting Flickr, Tumblr, etc).
Oh and I went to school at a liberal arts school where our chant includes the line 'Deyump, deyatty, yahoo'. In a show of school spirit the upper administrators all had custom plates with a word from the chant. The story goes that the person who had the plate with 'yahoo' in it was offered a very large sum of money for it by one of the Yahoo founders. They never sold. Made me think a little more fondly of the school.
posted by librarylis at 6:24 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
for what it ruined, and a silly meme
and 9° more whimsy.
posted by flabdablet at 6:33 AM on March 22, 2017
and 9° more whimsy.
posted by flabdablet at 6:33 AM on March 22, 2017
I think Yahoo!'s biggest contribution--besides being the first real Internet portal--was its fantasy leagues. Before the Internet dudebros turned fantasy leagues into de facto gambling, it was one way to play without having enough interested IRL friends to form a league. Thankfully I'd found an IRL league by then.
posted by Fezboy! at 6:59 AM on March 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Fezboy! at 6:59 AM on March 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
Here's a Yahoo story: when I first moved into my own apartment, I found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands in the evenings, and my first internet connection (the fastest dial-up money could buy!) that was mine and mine only. I went to Yahoo and from there I wandered over to games. I had recently learned how to play backgammon so that's what I ended up playing, and my second opponent was a guy who lived on the other side of the country who liked to chat. We ended up chatting (also via yahoo), and as each game on Yahoo had multiple "rooms" to play within, from then on we always played in the same room in case we were both playing at the same time. We'll be married 14 years next week.
posted by jenjenc at 6:59 AM on March 22, 2017 [69 favorites]
posted by jenjenc at 6:59 AM on March 22, 2017 [69 favorites]
It says something about the seemingly endless death-spiral of Yahoo! that the most interesting thing about the article was the link to this thing about former Myspace "scene queens."
They spawned one of the worst threads in mefi history, IMO.
posted by AFABulous at 7:00 AM on March 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
They spawned one of the worst threads in mefi history, IMO.
posted by AFABulous at 7:00 AM on March 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
I still have a Yahoo email address for things when I have to give one out to somebody on the phone, or put one in to buy something from a guest account on some site I'll never go back to again. The stuff that I know is just going to produce tons of junk mail. But when I signed up for it, I discovered that Yahoo had apparently bought some other free mail provider called rocketmail.com and kept it active, so I had the option to get a yahoo.com address or one of those.
I took rocketmail, even though it's harder to type on my phone's screen, because I figured it was less embarrassing than giving people a yahoo.com address.
posted by Naberius at 7:05 AM on March 22, 2017
I took rocketmail, even though it's harder to type on my phone's screen, because I figured it was less embarrassing than giving people a yahoo.com address.
posted by Naberius at 7:05 AM on March 22, 2017
I still have a couple Yahoo email accounts, but only because I've had them since 1998 or so. They are default junk emails plus a few legacy things. But man, have they gotten increasingly worse over time. I used to use Yahoo messenger a lot, and played a lot of cribbage on Yahoo games with a friend of mine who lives on the other side of the province. We never found a good replacement for it.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:06 AM on March 22, 2017
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:06 AM on March 22, 2017
I loved Yahoo! Internet Life. I mean sure it's a kinda hilarious concept now, but at the time my family and I found some amazing stuff I never could have found otherwise.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:10 AM on March 22, 2017
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:10 AM on March 22, 2017
The "babby" thing was also my first taste of just how mean and loathsome people can be on the intartubes. My wife works in the adoption field and, believe it or not, there really are a lot of teens and older out there who honestly don't know how sex leads to babies. Even married couples. I saw the "babby" question as a serious plea (obviously from a non-English-speaker) and the ridicule made me sad.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:15 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 7:15 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Came here to bemoan the loss of Yahoo Canasta (and backgammon!), see that Room 641-A (and jenjenc) beat me to it.
posted by spinturtle at 7:20 AM on March 22, 2017
posted by spinturtle at 7:20 AM on March 22, 2017
The babby thing *is* sad but it is also a mind blowingly amazing meme. All the Silicon Valley tech bros evangelizing this new technology which will bring us together and enlighten us and make us all rich!rich!rich! and the babby question (I imagine someone who is already pregnant sitting in an Internet cafe in Nigeria) emerges to remind us that the Internet, more than anything, provides a window on how in the dark, lonely, and disempowered most members of the human species really are.
If you can't laugh at that, I don't know how you can carry on living in this world because there's no way to reconcile the disparities beyond accepting that a human being is an absurd thing to be.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:33 AM on March 22, 2017 [18 favorites]
If you can't laugh at that, I don't know how you can carry on living in this world because there's no way to reconcile the disparities beyond accepting that a human being is an absurd thing to be.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:33 AM on March 22, 2017 [18 favorites]
Yeah, Screen was certainly a flash in the pan, wasn't it. I first saw it and thought "oh, cool! Old SNL videos! I'll watch them when I get a moment!" and then it was gone.
There must be whole economic textbooks devoted to companies that from day 1 aren't destined to last, and yet somehow last 25 years. I remember seeing the print magazine in the newsstand way back then and thinking, huh? Why would they create something that's so obviously going to fail?
posted by Melismata at 7:35 AM on March 22, 2017
There must be whole economic textbooks devoted to companies that from day 1 aren't destined to last, and yet somehow last 25 years. I remember seeing the print magazine in the newsstand way back then and thinking, huh? Why would they create something that's so obviously going to fail?
posted by Melismata at 7:35 AM on March 22, 2017
Good times. And it wasn't super sophisticated state sponsored intelligence agencies. It was some kid and the password was something ridiculous like her son's name.
Her password wasn't cracked. Rather, he was able to reset her password based on information about her (e.g., her birth date and where she met her husband) that were freely available to the public.
posted by gyc at 8:11 AM on March 22, 2017
Her password wasn't cracked. Rather, he was able to reset her password based on information about her (e.g., her birth date and where she met her husband) that were freely available to the public.
posted by gyc at 8:11 AM on March 22, 2017
I think Yahoo!'s biggest contribution--besides being the first real Internet portal--was its fantasy leagues.
If it's good enough for Metafilter, it's good enough for everybody.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:30 AM on March 22, 2017
If it's good enough for Metafilter, it's good enough for everybody.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:30 AM on March 22, 2017
I learned about 9/11 when I switched on my office computer and it automatically launched my browser with Yahoo as the home page. I was sitting in front of one of the fastest connections in the city at that time, and the fact that Yahoo wouldn't load properly was one of the most chilling aspects of that morning. Was it sabotage? No, just getting pummeled in a naturally occurring DDoS attack.
And I know it's bad, but to this day, whenever I hear some friends of mine are trying to get pregnant, I still say they want to "form babby".
posted by vibrotronica at 9:05 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
And I know it's bad, but to this day, whenever I hear some friends of mine are trying to get pregnant, I still say they want to "form babby".
posted by vibrotronica at 9:05 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
In 1996 / 97 I had a side gig teaching people how to use the Internet. We taught them how to drill down through Yahoo's directory, and then we taught them how to keyword search with some simple Boolean logic with Alta Vista. The class participants were people that had just bought their first computer at WalMart, but were afraid to to turn it on. You'd be surprised how confusing Yahoo was to those folks. It seems obvious to us today, but it was anything but obvious in 1997.
Well, that was Yahoo's whole problem in a nutshell, wasn't it? They successfully established themselves as the newbie's gateway to the internet, and ended up becoming the permanent home of everyone who stumbled right out of the gate. If you had the sophistication and confidence to a) wonder if there might be better places to be on the internet and b) go out and find them, you didn't stick around. Thus the state of Yahoo Answers, where it's become a byword for profoundly ignorant questions being given equally stupid answers.
posted by Diablevert at 9:18 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Well, that was Yahoo's whole problem in a nutshell, wasn't it? They successfully established themselves as the newbie's gateway to the internet, and ended up becoming the permanent home of everyone who stumbled right out of the gate. If you had the sophistication and confidence to a) wonder if there might be better places to be on the internet and b) go out and find them, you didn't stick around. Thus the state of Yahoo Answers, where it's become a byword for profoundly ignorant questions being given equally stupid answers.
posted by Diablevert at 9:18 AM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'd like to take this opportunity to draw people's attention to this excellent 2011 post by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94, which plays on the infamous "how is babby formed" question brilliantly. It's one of my all-time favorite MeFi posts.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:35 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:35 AM on March 22, 2017 [9 favorites]
Are the Yahoo groups archived anywhere, by chance?
They are still at groups.yahoo.com. I am a member of 2 groups, although I haven't looked at either in about 10 years. I see that they both have fresh forum posts from today & yesterday.
posted by polecat at 9:57 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
They are still at groups.yahoo.com. I am a member of 2 groups, although I haven't looked at either in about 10 years. I see that they both have fresh forum posts from today & yesterday.
posted by polecat at 9:57 AM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Maybe someone more knowledgeable can comment but I was always under the impression Yahoo Answers (the idea for the site) was directly stolen from Ask Metafilter. Ask Metafilter was launched December 2003 and Yahoo Answers was launched June 28, 2005. I always hated Yahoo for that. Can anyone confirm?
posted by banished at 10:24 AM on March 22, 2017
posted by banished at 10:24 AM on March 22, 2017
They are still at groups.yahoo.com. I am a member of 2 groups, although I haven't looked at either in about 10 years.
I'm a member of a small organization that still uses a Yahoo group for a mailing list and occasional file sharing, mainly because that's what we used when we set it up in 200x and it serves our modest needs so there's been no real impetus to switch to something else.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:36 AM on March 22, 2017
I'm a member of a small organization that still uses a Yahoo group for a mailing list and occasional file sharing, mainly because that's what we used when we set it up in 200x and it serves our modest needs so there's been no real impetus to switch to something else.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:36 AM on March 22, 2017
Here's a Yahoo story: when I first moved into my own apartment, I found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands in the evenings, and my first internet connection (the fastest dial-up money could buy!) that was mine and mine only. I went to Yahoo and from there I wandered over to games. I had recently learned how to play backgammon so that's what I ended up playing, and my second opponent was a guy who lived on the other side of the country who liked to chat. We ended up chatting (also via yahoo), and as each game on Yahoo had multiple "rooms" to play within, from then on we always played in the same room in case we were both playing at the same time. We'll be married 14 years next week.
WHO WON?
posted by srboisvert at 1:24 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
WHO WON?
posted by srboisvert at 1:24 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
I'm talking, of course, of the infamous Yahoo Answers query "how is babby formed?"
Has no one linked the sublime FPP on Westminster Abbey from just before the royal wedding?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:46 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Has no one linked the sublime FPP on Westminster Abbey from just before the royal wedding?
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:46 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Wait, "they need to do way instain mother>" was in fact a separate question and not an answer to "how is babby formed"? My whole life has been a lie.
posted by eykal at 1:47 PM on March 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by eykal at 1:47 PM on March 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
Annalee Newitz is a treasure, and I agree, the Babby question is funny and absurd (I'm only human), but I always took that Babby thing to have been drafted by someone with limited English, no? So sort of problematic as such a 'classic' internet joke?
I guess if that is the case, it still points to the failure of Yahoo Answers. Ask.me now a days (after some hard work on the part of our moderators and our community) would probably have a fairly kind answer to this question, both factual and (hopefully) gentle...
posted by latkes at 2:03 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I guess if that is the case, it still points to the failure of Yahoo Answers. Ask.me now a days (after some hard work on the part of our moderators and our community) would probably have a fairly kind answer to this question, both factual and (hopefully) gentle...
posted by latkes at 2:03 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
One of my college roommates entered college as an excellent programmer and, as a computer science student, spent most of his time for the first year or so testing out of classes, doing basic requirements, and screwing around on the web with whatever projects he could come up with.
Yahoo! Games was maybe a couple years old, and included blackjack. Which, if you have infinite patience and aren't using real money -- but are rewarded in some sort of points that can be transferred to actual credits at whatever online marketplace Yahoo! was running at the time -- can be relatively profitable. If you're a skilled programmer able to do some minor OCR work and some free time to write a program to recognize cards and click a couple buttons in accordance with basic blackjack strategy, it becomes much more profitable.
There wasn't a whole lot of language in the terms of service at the time restricting how the game was played. Still, my roommate played it safe and only ran a game or two at a time, usually overnight. He ended up getting a pretty decent digital camera. His brother had no such scruples and ended up with a new mattress and a box of wine or two, before Yahoo! either cracked down or they decided they were bored of gaming the games.
I have no skin in the Yahoo! game now, other than a mostly-dormant flickr account I should shut down, but I always think fondly about Yahoo! Games.
posted by mikeh at 2:09 PM on March 22, 2017
Yahoo! Games was maybe a couple years old, and included blackjack. Which, if you have infinite patience and aren't using real money -- but are rewarded in some sort of points that can be transferred to actual credits at whatever online marketplace Yahoo! was running at the time -- can be relatively profitable. If you're a skilled programmer able to do some minor OCR work and some free time to write a program to recognize cards and click a couple buttons in accordance with basic blackjack strategy, it becomes much more profitable.
There wasn't a whole lot of language in the terms of service at the time restricting how the game was played. Still, my roommate played it safe and only ran a game or two at a time, usually overnight. He ended up getting a pretty decent digital camera. His brother had no such scruples and ended up with a new mattress and a box of wine or two, before Yahoo! either cracked down or they decided they were bored of gaming the games.
I have no skin in the Yahoo! game now, other than a mostly-dormant flickr account I should shut down, but I always think fondly about Yahoo! Games.
posted by mikeh at 2:09 PM on March 22, 2017
spitbull is a yodeling expert. *swoons*
posted by Orlop at 2:16 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Orlop at 2:16 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: Anyway I smoked a ton of weed in preparation and put on a sharp suit.
And yes, Yahoo Groups are still a thing. Our extended family set up what was at the time an eGroup for exchanging baby photos and other updates in the pre-MySpace days and god help us, we're still using it to this day. Still works just fine and I'm frankly not sure what we're going to do without it if Yahoo shuts it down. Who am I kidding, we're all going to shift to FaceBook like we 85% have already. I guess I see why this business is not working out that well.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:12 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
And yes, Yahoo Groups are still a thing. Our extended family set up what was at the time an eGroup for exchanging baby photos and other updates in the pre-MySpace days and god help us, we're still using it to this day. Still works just fine and I'm frankly not sure what we're going to do without it if Yahoo shuts it down. Who am I kidding, we're all going to shift to FaceBook like we 85% have already. I guess I see why this business is not working out that well.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:12 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, and another thing that Yahoo is good for, really fantastically good right up through today, is financial data.
Somebody at some point let the nerds run the shop at Yahoo Finance and never really cleaned up the site, because you can still not only display historical price data for virtually any US stock, mutual fund, or ETF, but you can download all of it in XLS files. Daily, weekly, or monthly. Raw prices, or adjusted for dividend payments. Dividend payments only. Etc etc etc. Right now I'm looking at monthly stock quotes for AT&T back to 1984.
I've spent many hours and saved hundreds of dollars figuring out how I would have done if I'd invested X% in stocks and Y% in bonds at various points in history, whether it would've been better to buy in a lump sum at the end of the year or gradually over the course of the year. Probably talked myself out of half a dozen silly active trading ideas.
I'm going to miss it when they shut off the tap on that.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:20 PM on March 22, 2017 [7 favorites]
Somebody at some point let the nerds run the shop at Yahoo Finance and never really cleaned up the site, because you can still not only display historical price data for virtually any US stock, mutual fund, or ETF, but you can download all of it in XLS files. Daily, weekly, or monthly. Raw prices, or adjusted for dividend payments. Dividend payments only. Etc etc etc. Right now I'm looking at monthly stock quotes for AT&T back to 1984.
I've spent many hours and saved hundreds of dollars figuring out how I would have done if I'd invested X% in stocks and Y% in bonds at various points in history, whether it would've been better to buy in a lump sum at the end of the year or gradually over the course of the year. Probably talked myself out of half a dozen silly active trading ideas.
I'm going to miss it when they shut off the tap on that.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 3:20 PM on March 22, 2017 [7 favorites]
Annalee Newitz is a treasure, and I agree, the Babby question is funny and absurd (I'm only human), but I always took that Babby thing to have been drafted by someone with limited English, no? So sort of problematic as such a 'classic' internet joke?
This!
This is the first time I've seen this question or meme. Not that names on Yahoo Answers mean anything, but that questioner's name rings very Indian (kavya is a feminine name in India) to me so this could very well be someone whose first language isn't English. I am disposed towards not making fun of it and yes it does lean heavily towards problematic to me.
Speaking of Yahoo, Launch was my precursor to the likes of Pandora and Slacker, I never understood the appeal of their portal - it was too busy and haven't been on Flickr in ages. I only logged on recently to download all my Flickr photos thanks to Metafilter.
posted by viramamunivar at 4:17 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
This!
This is the first time I've seen this question or meme. Not that names on Yahoo Answers mean anything, but that questioner's name rings very Indian (kavya is a feminine name in India) to me so this could very well be someone whose first language isn't English. I am disposed towards not making fun of it and yes it does lean heavily towards problematic to me.
Speaking of Yahoo, Launch was my precursor to the likes of Pandora and Slacker, I never understood the appeal of their portal - it was too busy and haven't been on Flickr in ages. I only logged on recently to download all my Flickr photos thanks to Metafilter.
posted by viramamunivar at 4:17 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Who won?
I had forgotten all about it but looked it up and it was 9 year old Taylor Ware of Franklin, TN. They did in fact continue the contest for a few more years.
posted by spitbull at 6:31 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I had forgotten all about it but looked it up and it was 9 year old Taylor Ware of Franklin, TN. They did in fact continue the contest for a few more years.
posted by spitbull at 6:31 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Because as I said I had smoked a lot of weed. Or did I mention that?
Also I wore a suit, did I say?
posted by spitbull at 6:38 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also I wore a suit, did I say?
posted by spitbull at 6:38 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I will say that Yahoo has a very nice sports scores app for Android.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:13 PM on March 22, 2017
posted by Chrysostom at 7:13 PM on March 22, 2017
I still use Yahoo for my primary email account. I made it many years ago and too many things are linked to it for me to actively change it. So I just have to deal with the shame. Their email is absolutely fine though. Does everything.
posted by Peter B-S at 7:23 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Peter B-S at 7:23 PM on March 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
When I think of Yahoo!, I think of that time when I went to some web awards show in San Francisco in the late 90s, then back to Derek Powazek's house, where one of the original Yahoos (Andy, if memory serves me correctly) had arrived with cannabis. Chemical lightweight that I was, I was not prepared for what I inhaled. I clearly remember Derek pointing out that Andy, being a Yahoo, could afford really, really good stuff.
Later, Derek made grilled cheese sandwiches. They were delicious.
There's probably a metaphor for Yahoo! as a company in all this, I suppose.
posted by RakDaddy at 8:56 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Later, Derek made grilled cheese sandwiches. They were delicious.
There's probably a metaphor for Yahoo! as a company in all this, I suppose.
posted by RakDaddy at 8:56 PM on March 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I just miss Yahoo! Graffiti, as mentioned previously.
posted by limeonaire at 8:56 PM on March 22, 2017
posted by limeonaire at 8:56 PM on March 22, 2017
I've been anti-Yahoo since they turned over Chinese dissidents 15-or-so years ago.
posted by persona au gratin at 12:17 AM on March 23, 2017
posted by persona au gratin at 12:17 AM on March 23, 2017
The main thing yahoo means to me these days is the source of terrible questions on My Brother, My Brother and Me. I've always thought it's about fifty percent young people our education systems have desperately failed and fifty percent terrible trolls, with strong overlap. I'm glad that the internet as a whole has matured and learned how to treat disadvantaged people with respect, but I still kind of miss these troll spaces from my own idiot child days. "What are some good warrior cat names?"
posted by fomhar at 12:58 AM on March 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by fomhar at 12:58 AM on March 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
Not that names on Yahoo Answers mean anything, but that questioner's name rings very Indian (kavya is a feminine name in India) to me so this could very well be someone whose first language isn't English.
I'll eat my hat if Metafilter hasn't debated this to death already, but I find it pretty squicky as well. This reads like a person so ignorant on important life issues that they have to try and get it from strangers on the Internet across a language barrier - they can't be in a very good situation.
posted by Dr Dracator at 1:54 AM on March 23, 2017
I'll eat my hat if Metafilter hasn't debated this to death already, but I find it pretty squicky as well. This reads like a person so ignorant on important life issues that they have to try and get it from strangers on the Internet across a language barrier - they can't be in a very good situation.
posted by Dr Dracator at 1:54 AM on March 23, 2017
It always seemed to me to be the grammar of maybe a young kid, somewhere around eight or nine, who stumbled upon the perfect resource for someone that age. My partner and I, after almost seven years together, still call each other "babby" as pretty much our only pet name for one another.
posted by Dokterrock at 2:20 AM on March 23, 2017
posted by Dokterrock at 2:20 AM on March 23, 2017
While I now understand that the questions and lack of information/ESL/illiteracy they represent are SAD, I have to admit that the first time someone sent me the link to "how is babby formed" I pretty much pissed myself laughing, every time I watched it, for a very long time. Something about the confluence of the "caveman lawyer" style reading of the questions. Killed me. Every. Time.
posted by SassHat at 10:24 PM on March 23, 2017
posted by SassHat at 10:24 PM on March 23, 2017
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posted by fredludd at 2:10 AM on March 22, 2017