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How Yahoo came up with its new name: Altaba
- ENGNR 10y agoAlt + Tabber Someone particularly proficient in changing between windows
- dep_b 10y agoA window everybody Alt-Tabbed out of long ago yet still isn't closed.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mandelbulb 10y agoI guess that name choice is just more evidence the CEO wasn't the only moron who brought about Yahoo brand's ruin.
- fuck_google 10y agoWhat are you saying? I know from experience that Google execs are infallible.
- silvestrov 10y agoIn Danish it sounds like "alle taber" which means "everybody loses".
- sova 10y agospectacular
- yeukhon 10y agoWell, one wonders how AOL still strike to survive after all these years. MSN gone. Yahoo gone.
- apaprocki 10y agoWe just had this discussion at work.. one of the recent reports stated over 2 million subscribers still pulling in ~600 million a year just from that (pales in comparison to ad revenue and past performance, but still... 2 million!). The average per-account income was something like $21/month.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y agoThat's more an indicator of how large parts of America don't have affordable or any broadband access. I'd trust AOL to be around longer than NetZero or any other bottom feeder ISP.
- SwellJoe 10y agoWell, the AARP has 38 million members, so that's not too surprising, I guess. (I'm saying that a lot of old folks don't realize there is an Internet, or email, or online news, etc. without AOL.)
- Azeralthefallen 10y agoMy grandparents still use AOL, because they live in the absolute middle of nowhere (aka they drive roughly an hour to be able to do groceries). Their options have been basically dial up, or extremely expensive satellite internet. Verizon has been promising the little place they live for around 5 years that they will eventually get some sort of service, however last time i was there i could barely get any cell coverage.
- SwellJoe 10y agoMy previous company built web caching servers for independent ISPs. We served a bunch of providers in rural areas who offered WiMAX to customers that were too far out to get DSL or cable internet, and with lower latency than satellite. It was usually somewhat expensive, compared to DSL/cable, but the ISP could profitably serve individual customers the "last mile" (or last dozen miles, with a repeater or two). A lot of those ISPs died as antitrust regulation in the broadband industry failed and their nearby customers got poached by the telcos and cable operators, making it harder to operate at large enough scale to make it work. So, there was a moment where it looked like a lot of those difficult to reach customers would be reached by ISPs willing to roll out WiMAX with tall antennas and repeaters. But, it didn't work out, and most of them died. Anyway, I agree with you that there are still stretches of the US that have people but no broadband. And, my primary internet is mobile broadband (from two different carriers, since I travel and often find only one of them works reliably), so I know the pain of it first-hand. But, still, I'd wager that most AOL customers are older folks (even if the reason is also that people living in rural areas tend to be older).
- mdesq 10y agoAltavista + Alibaba was my first thought.
- Raphmedia 10y agoI was about to comment on the same thing.
- keypress 10y agoAs an English speaker this comes across as such a horrible name (for me at least). A typo: alt-abc?
- panic 10y agoThis article could be a tweet: The new name is meant to be a combination of the words “alternative and Alibaba,” according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak on the record about the name change.
- puranjay 10y agoMost articles could be condensed into headlines
- guftagu 10y ago> Most articles could be condensed into headlines There really needs to be an app for that
- puranjay 10y agoThere is an Indian startup that does that: InShorts.com
- salemh 10y agoThis reddit bot does a fantastic job of this. Summarizing articles in a readable manner. https://www.reddit.com/user/autotldr/ https://www.reddit.com/user/autotldr/ https://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ https://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotld...
- BronSteeDiam 10y agoThere was, it was bought by Yahoo... http://summly.com http://summly.com
- dom96 10y agoI remember this. Created by a 16 year old[1]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_D'Aloisio
- est 10y agoOn Chinese Interwebs, it's been called Ali's Dad. You can google for 阿里他爸.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- AndrewKemendo 10y agoStill the third most visited Web property in the United States According to Alexa it's the 5th [1] but I'm sure it's not a huge difference between third and fifth. Yahoo still makes almost $5BN a year. It's a 24 year old internet behemoth. I mean by any reasonable measure of a company, those are ungodly numbers. Given how people talk about Yahoo though you'd think it was populated with lepers. I guess it's all about managing expectations. [1]http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US
- __jal 10y agoPart of it is that this is HN, and Yahoo as an internet company has been boring for a long, long time[1]. Another part of it is that it shows the incredible value of inertia. Sports scores and email is with $5B. And I think a third is just a bit of schadenfreude from the internet insider set. Selling half of yourself to a Baby Bell-revenant and turning the rest into a tracking stock is a sad way for the first internet directory to die. [1] The last vaguely interesting thing I can remember was Yahoo Pipes.
- paulddraper 10y ago> Part of it is that this is HN, and Yahoo as an internet company has been boring for a long, long time It's like the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M). They make $30 billion in annual sales with 55k products. How often do you hear about them? They're big, profitable, and news is mostly boring to HN interests.
- Steeeve 10y agoHow do you even pronounce that?
- piracyde25 10y agoAhl-tah-bah
- baybal2 10y agoalt+tab it Alibabers will kill the company, they have no talent running western style dotcoms
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- henrikschroder 10y agohttps://www.aabacosmallbusiness.com/ https://www.aabacosmallbusiness.com/ With Aabaco being taken by the original spin-off plan, this is simply an alternative company name so that they still get the stock symbol they want for the investment company that will remain behind after all the web assets have been sold to Verizon. That's it.
- jobin 10y agoAltaba is the abbreviation of alibaba's father in China. 阿(A)里(Li)它(Ta)爸(Ba) XD
- ericschmidt 10y agoFirst we get the Alt-Right, now we've got Alt-Baba. IMO, this naming convention is Alt-Stupid.
- dintech 10y agoAltabadabadoo!
- seppin 10y agoDid no one ever have the conversation about how Alibaba is a racist stereotype or do we just give Asia a pass on this kinda thing?
- pharrlax 10y agoNo Westerner wants to be the one to call Chinese people racist
- corbee 10y agoHow is Alibaba a racist stereotype? The character is from a timeless classic... its like claiming a hypothetical company called Lancelot is a racist stereotype.
- jessaustin 10y agoWhat "stereotype" does "Ali Baba" invoke? As I recall the story, Ali Baba was a clever man who started out poor but made his fortune by outwitting dangerous thieves with the help of his brother's super-capable slave girl. Is there something bad there? Even if there is, is there something that anyone would have a stereotype about? There are other characters from literature that could be problematic, but this just isn't one of those.
- arenaninja 10y agoAlt + Tab + A?
- quickConclusion 10y agoI really do not get it. Verizon spends a lot of money for what essentially is a widely recognizable brand, popular destination, and an email service, and they change it? "I saw it on Altaba"??? All these people with emails @yahoo.com is free advertising for yahoo.com, but guess what, no more yahoo.com? Will they try to force a change of email domain over 20 years and kill the email service for good? I have no clue now why they bought Yahoo in the first place... Edit: got it all wrong. Thanks all for clarifying which piece is what.
- spullara 10y agoYou realize that Verizon is buying the Yahoo brand? Altaba is just the shell company that holds onto their pieces of Alibaba and Y! Japan.
- adevine 10y agoThere is a lot of misunderstanding about what is going on. The current Yahoo basically exists of 3 main parts: 1. The Yahoo website and properties that most folks think of when they think "Yahoo". 2. The 15% share of Alibaba 3. The share in Yahoo Japan. Verizon bought part #1. That is not changing its name and will continue to be accessible on yahoo.com. Parts 2 and 3 are being left behind in a company that is being renamed Altaba.
- fnbr 10y agoNot quite- the part of Yahoo owned by Verizon will still be called Yahoo, but the part not acquired by Verizon (essentially the Alibaba shares) will be called Altaba.