My first email account was a hotmail account in 1996.
On a trip to Bangalore, I went to a cyber cafe on Brigade Road, paid Rs 120 for an hour of usage and managed to get a hotmail account registered . A year later, I signed up for a yahoo account and it seemed like a God Sent thing - it was so much sharper, user friendly and colourful compared to hotmail. Hotmail was what it was ( and largely, still is - a boring blue email), but Yahoo was super cool. Then came yahoo messenger. Yahoo was the word to say when online . One of my friends in India started chatting with a girl in Germany on yahoo messenger. A few years on, they ended up getting married. It was an unbelievable world that yahoo had opened up.
On a trip to Bangalore, I went to a cyber cafe on Brigade Road, paid Rs 120 for an hour of usage and managed to get a hotmail account registered . A year later, I signed up for a yahoo account and it seemed like a God Sent thing - it was so much sharper, user friendly and colourful compared to hotmail. Hotmail was what it was ( and largely, still is - a boring blue email), but Yahoo was super cool. Then came yahoo messenger. Yahoo was the word to say when online . One of my friends in India started chatting with a girl in Germany on yahoo messenger. A few years on, they ended up getting married. It was an unbelievable world that yahoo had opened up.
Then , in my cyber life, in 1998 came a search engine. I read about it in a magazine and tried it out. It went by the name Google. It was very efficient and did the job nicely.
Then followed the sequence of events in the Silicon valley, which had an impact on the cyber life of many many millions like me. ( I got these dates from a whatsapp message, and notwithstanding the accuracy of the dates and the numbers, the essence of the message stays)
1998: Yahoo refuses to buy Google for US $ 1 million
2002: Yahoo realizes its mistake and offers to buy Google for US $ 3 billion. Google wants US $ 5 billion. Yahoo refuses.
2008: Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for US $ 40 billion. Yahoo says no.
2016: Yahoo sold to Verizon for US $ 4.6 billion.
On a related note, Google's market cap today is $ 500 billion.
It's fun to speculate, which will be the next one to fall - Google, Facebook, Apple , Amazon ?
Like in the case of yahoo, Something which seemed impossible a few years ago, becomes a painful reality in some time .
The sequence of events explains it all.
Timing is everything.
And being ready to embrace and drive change is what counts the most.
Timing is everything.
And being ready to embrace and drive change is what counts the most.
5 comments:
Deepak, very well written. I learnt few details related to yahoo from your post today. Agree about the timing bit. Also their inability to navigate in a changing world. They tried though.
Deepak,
I connect with the transient nature of all living entities. Corporate, foremost. Being a Bill Gates fan, I still love the simplicity of live account. For me Yahoo, was secondary & GUI not so user-friendly.
The data points you've mentioned, I received & shared with other colleagues. It's a fascinating Perils of Change Management Case Study.
Loved this short & sweet sharing.
5 Star!!!!!
Deepak,
I connect with the transient nature of all living entities. Corporate, foremost. Being a Bill Gates fan, I still love the simplicity of live account. For me Yahoo, was secondary & GUI not so user-friendly.
The data points you've mentioned, I received & shared with other colleagues. It's a fascinating Perils of Change Management Case Study.
Loved this short & sweet sharing.
5 Star!!!!!
Yahoo was my first account and continued to be...rest all were secondary. I see Facebook to Fall next....
Super Article Sir...5stars.....
Post a Comment