Ethan J. A. Schoonover

If you have a hard time imagining Twitter collapsing or Facebook becoming irrelevant, remember that there was a time that Yahoo! was synonymous with The Internet and it seemed like nothing could stop it from world domination. It had purchased Flickr which was an absolute thousand-pound-giant-gorilla destination that OWNED online images. It had all the cards to play to the end.

These things never last. Money isn't smart and it always destroys the thing if left to its own devices.

Mar 8, 2023 at 6:00pmWeb
Show threadMalrauxMar 8, 2023

@ethanschoonover :Yells at kids to get off my lawn:

I also remember when prodigy and AOL were the internet. AOL was large enough to buy Time Warner.

Show threadEthan J. A. SchoonoverMar 8, 2023
@jedwhite my agency pitched the AOL TW account when that happened. I remember we thought it was an iffy situation after the execs showed up for the brief... there was a take-the-money-and-run vibe.
Show threadBrian RogersMar 8, 2023
@jedwhite @ethanschoonover The internet world where trend/fad driven stock price is the vast bulk of the company's assets is bizarre.
Show threadGeorge WüstMar 8, 2023
@ethanschoonover OK, so now I know.
Show threadLeon CowleMar 8, 2023
@ethanschoonover @joesteel Reminds me of the movie Frequency (2000)… A character from 1999 goes back to 1969 and convinces a young friend (Gordo) to one day buy “YAHOO” stock. Later, back in the present, older Gordo is driving a Mercedes with a license plate of “1 YAHOO”.
Show threadEthan J. A. SchoonoverMar 8, 2023
@leoncowle @joesteel As a ham radio operator I've definitely seen that film, but i'd forgotten about that detail. Hilarious in retrospect.
Show threadMike CohenMar 9, 2023
@ethanschoonover Flickr was acquired by SmugMug and they’re still doing well
Show threadDan LangilleMar 9, 2023
@ethanschoonover Anyone remember Alta Vista?
Show threadDan YorkMar 9, 2023

@ethanschoonover Back in 2012, colleagues of mine expressed that view as … with the Internet “there are no permanent favorites”.

https://www.internetsociety.org/internet-invariants-what-really-matters/

As you note, services come and go. Many of us may remember MySpace, too.

Internet Invariants: What Really Matters - Internet Society

It’s important to understand what is actually important and unchanging about the Internet – the invariants that have been true to date.

Internet Society
Show threadPaul QuirkMar 9, 2023
@ethanschoonover the reason they don't last is because their entire purpose is to grab the attention of people with short attention spans in order to advertise a capitalist agenda. When people start to catch on, they let it die and start up the next big thing. They did this with radio. They did it with television. They're doing it with the Internet. They are not meant to last in a world of planned obsolescence.
Show threadChris GlassMar 9, 2023

@ethanschoonover at one point, Yahoo had a desktop software division that was at the top on the game. Desktop widgets, toolbars, messenger, and even an app that worked with cable cards to watch and record TV. Yahoo Pipes was a wysiwyg API interface to do SO MUCH.

All of that is gone now. It's just crazy how it just evaporated

Show threadEthan J. A. SchoonoverMar 9, 2023
@TheChrisGlass yahoo pipes was excellent
Show threadSörenMar 12, 2023
@TheChrisGlass @ethanschoonover even then, the weird era where they bought Konfabulator and branded it Yahoo! Widgets, made a whole new native Yahoo! Messenger for Mac, bought Flickr and Upcoming (and del.icio.us?), I kind of felt they were already on a downturn
Show threadChris GlassMar 12, 2023

@chucker @ethanschoonover Yeah. I felt like they knew they couldn't compete with Google on the search front anymore, so they tried to find any other niche to become the king of.

This was back when Google had their amazing desktop search tool that embarrassed the built-in Windows one.

Show threadHal BrownMar 9, 2023
@ethanschoonover Don't forget this:
Show threadJames J MalcolmMar 10, 2023
@Hal_Brown @ethanschoonover
LMAO
Show threadSörenMar 12, 2023
@Hal_Brown @ethanschoonover I can never not read that 2009 logo as “lol.”
Show threadEspinadaMar 9, 2023
@ethanschoonover
Remember “MySpace”?
Show threadCarlRJMar 9, 2023

@ethanschoonover yahoo, MySpace, aol, geocities. AOL, was omnipresent. Remember them merging with Time Warner? Now where are they?

Looking forward to Twitter being an archive site, and archeological curiosity.

Show threadBertrand FanMar 11, 2023
@ethanschoonover @seldo okay but the yahoo logo didn’t look like that when it still had cards
Show threadThis is HellMar 11, 2023
@ethanschoonover 💯💯💯
Show threadpeter honeymanMar 11, 2023

@ethanschoonover alta vista! myspace! aol!

i keep waiting for (praying for) someone to disintermediate paypal

Show threadFunkatron (Ed Finkler)Mar 11, 2023
@ethanschoonover @grumpybozo great reminder. All is ephemeral.
Show threadPiers CawleyMar 11, 2023
@ethanschoonover in hindsight Yahoo was already on the skids by the time they acquired Flickr. I've still not got over the trauma of them replacing Flickr's simple login with the godawful mess that was YahooID.
Show threadChris AbbeyMar 11, 2023
@pdcawley @ethanschoonover good news, that mess is long gone now! Was one of the top priorities when Flickr was extracted out of Yahoo.
Show threadex or current IDF unwelcomeMar 16, 2023
@ethanschoonover I remember Mosaic as the browser
Show threadSteven SavageMar 22, 2023
@ethanschoonover nicely said. Money works to extract value. And eventually there's so much extracted it collapses.