They were called surfers, and they were a collection of mostly 20-somethings — including a yoga lover, an ex-banker, a divinity student, a recent college grad from Ohio hungry for adventure — all hired by a start-up called Yahoo to build a directory of the world’s most interesting websites.
I remember this so well. I can’t imagine building a directory of the most interesting Web sites by hand, but they did it.
When the only real way
Was on a Website of gray
And designers were moanin’
They were sick of Times Roman.
Charming article, and sad. In those early days I would use Yahoo or AltaVista (and later Google) depending on what I was searching for. For certain kinds of searches, Yahoo’s categorical listings were great.
When they announced their plan to chase after Google with indexed search, I thought it was a mistake. Maybe human-curated listing seems unsustainable, but that’s what Apple Music now promotes as its strategic advantage. Then again, that’s a paid service.
But I thought if they’re going to be just like Google, well Google is better at it so I guess I’ll just use them instead. So did everyone else I guess. I thought at the time it was the beginning of the end of Yahoo, and fifteen years later it’s still what I think.
<<o. ✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤:::::::!ja384s:….,……