Yahoo shuts down Internet relic AltaVista
Source: AP-Excite
By BARBARA ORTUTAY
NEW YORK (AP) - Once up on a time, there was a popular search engine called AltaVista. It lives no more.
On Monday, its owner Yahoo Inc. sent AltaVista.com to the Internet graveyard to rest alongside order-almost-anything venture Kozmo.com and the butler from Ask Jeeves.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based AltaVista was introduced in 1995, three years before Google Inc. was founded. Eclipsed by Google in the early 2000s, AltaVista's star had already faded by the time Yahoo acquired it as part of its $1.7 billion purchase of Overture Services Inc. in July 2003. Overture had bought AltaVista earlier that year from Massachusetts-based CMGI Inc.
Yahoo announced AltaVista's fate on its Tumblr page late last month. Search industry expert Danny Sullivan likened AltaVista to a bright child neglected by its parents.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130708/DA7DGTGG1.html
Pterodactyl
(1,687 posts)Gregorian
(23,867 posts)It's kind of cool to be there at the birth of something big.
My first email was in 1990.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)niyad
(113,340 posts)skydive forever
(445 posts)Sad, but things change I guess.
SteveG
(3,109 posts)AltaVista was the first good search engine. Much of what Google and Bing are today was pioneered by Altavista
PasadenaTrudy
(3,998 posts)I still have an Earthlink email tho,
BootinUp
(47,165 posts)search engine. imho.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)rest in peace.
You were the first full site search engine on the internet (Yahoo was first, but was just a directory not a search engine), and you will be missed.
There are some features that altavista had which Google either never had or has since gotten rid of. Things like full boolean searches and the like.
RIP
alp227
(32,032 posts)Never knew it still existed.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)RobinA
(9,893 posts)A great search engine. Way cleaner than Google, although I guess it's unfair to compare early internet to the vast commercial enterprise that is the Internet now.
rwsanders
(2,605 posts)Or did they wrap that into Yahoo?
Neoma
(10,039 posts)Even if the translation was a bit off.
thenooch
(82 posts)Now get back to me when Yahoo decides to shut down Yahoo. You can't stay in business just by copying 'everything' google does...yahoo mail really sucks.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)We're talking WAY back in the 90's, lol.
East Coast Pirate
(775 posts)I haven't had a website in years.