December 8, 2000

1:18 PM

Yahoo-ification of the Web.Yahoo buys E-Groups. They bought Webring.org a few months back. What is next? Will my Yahoo screen name become my legal name? And don't even talk to me about the spam issue, because I might start to cry.
posted by kristin (11 comments total)

Yahoo! We're screwed!!
posted by schlomo at 1:19 PM on December 8, 2000

This isn't a double post warning or anything, but I proposed a similar question a several months back and there were some interesting responses.
posted by mathowie at 1:21 PM on December 8, 2000

Yahoo bought egroups a while ago. They are just now announcing that the official name will be "Yahoo Groups' instead of egroups.
posted by gluechunk at 1:32 PM on December 8, 2000

Yahoo bought Egroups this summer; only now is it getting around to assimilation. There is talk from on high (read as, Jerry Yang) that Yahoo will want to start charging for services. Not sure which ones.

As for spam, I don't think I've ever gotten spam related to Yahoo or Egroups, from them or because of them. Don't see how that's an issue.
posted by luke at 1:34 PM on December 8, 2000

(That's what I get for spending three minutes trying to find a link.)
posted by luke at 1:49 PM on December 8, 2000

Just to be difficult about things, I think Geocities bought Webring from Starseed in 1998, and then Yahoo acquired Geocities in January 1999. They just sat on Webring for a while before doing anything with it.
posted by Aaaugh! at 2:02 PM on December 8, 2000

If Yahoo buys Amazon, then I'll be impressed/worried. As it is, Yahoo is probably the only reason a lot of these companies are still around. Yahoo is one of the few Internet companies that actually makes a profit. Without their financial support (in the form of buying the company ;), a lot of these companies would have gone under.

I think Yahoo is doing a good job of building up a base of services that will allow it to stay competitive as MSN and AOL eat away at the market. Within five years, I bet 95% of web services will be provided by one of these three companies (or their affiliates/owners/subsidiaries at that time).
posted by daveadams at 2:04 PM on December 8, 2000

When Blogger sells out to AOL-Sony-Warner-Viacom in 2004, don't say I didn't warn you.
posted by daveadams at 2:06 PM on December 8, 2000

I use yahoo mail and it's very good about spam. Much better than, say, hotmail.

I don't know how them taking over egroups will affect much, besides the third name-change since I registered with onelist a couple years ago or so.
posted by dagnyscott at 7:01 PM on December 8, 2000

I think that the contention about spam is that Yahoo! is selling or allowing too much access to e-mail addresses. I know that I have one address that I use *solely* for subscriptions on eGroups lists, and in the last few months, that address is suddenly overwhelmed with spam. The address hasn't been published anywhere else, so it makes me wonder.
posted by Dreama at 5:06 AM on December 9, 2000

Let's skip the fact that all this merging thing is a bit worrying for the future of the economy.

Why do you worry about the so called 'yahoo-ification' of those newly-added services?

As far as I know (and can see), Yahoo! has got the least possible ads on a page (just one) and I've never received any spam from them.
Plus, their pages are fast loading and the technical support is great.

I believe that we like to think that there is a danger hidden in everything around us. But, let's just be serious on this one.
posted by kchristidis at 8:36 AM on December 9, 2000