Name Critic rates Yahoo

Somewhere along the line, Yahoo lost its mojo. And soon it will loose its name and just be a historic entry in the Age of the Internet. I am therefore feeling remiss for not writing about this name before. That was a major oversight.

After all, the name was very edgy from the get go. And as I told many a client who were blown away, or at least struggling with this name, don’t worry, one day it will be mainstream.

And, of course, unfortunately I was correct. Even the logo has gone to a boring navy blue 2 dimensional image. But at least they held on to the ! despite some internal and external pressure so we can still rate the logo a 9.

Where is the fun? Where is the excitement? Where is the energy? All washed away in corporate financial battles and a new product centric CEO without the fun young heart and daring of the original team.

But what a great name. Wikipedia gives some weird and wonderful meanings to the name Yahoo, treating it as a set of initials.  But none of these reasons are right, except that the founders were pouring over a dictionary and liked names that started with Y and Ya in particular because they were used to working with Yacc (Yet another C compiler). Of course, they were two young and enterprising young men, one of whom was used to Ya in his own name (Jerry Yang).  And the fact that the dictionary calls a Yahoo a slightly crazy cowboy surely appealed to their funny bones too.

So RIP Yahoo.  The big corporate phone guys are taking over. Apparently they will call the new company Altaba – some unpronounceable half Chinese babble.

We fondly remember the leadership, fun and excitement of the original Yahoo. Perhaps I will search for a big poster with this original logo:

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