Yahoo!

was one of the surviving large Internet companies after the dot-com bubbl
e burst. Nevertheless, on September 26, 2001, Yahoo! stocks closed at a five-yea
r low of $4.06 (split-adjusted).
Yahoo! formed partnerships with telecommunications and Internet providers to cre
ate content-rich broadband services to compete with AOL. On June 3, 2002, SBC an
d Yahoo! launched a national co-branded dial-up Internet access service.[19] In
July 2003, BT Group Openworld announced an alliance with Yahoo!.[20] On August 2
3, 2005, Yahoo! and Verizon Communications launched an integrated DSL service.[2
1]
In late 2002, Yahoo! began to bolster its search services by acquiring other sea
rch engines. In December 2002, Yahoo! acquired Inktomi Corporation. In February
2005, Yahoo! acquired Konfabulator and rebranded it Yahoo! Widgets,[22] a deskto
p application and in July 2003, it acquired Overture Services, Inc. and its subs
idiaries AltaVista and AlltheWeb. On February 18, 2004, Yahoo! dropped Google-po
wered results and returned to using its own technology to provide search results
.[23]
In 2004, in response to Google's release of Gmail, Yahoo! upgraded the storage o
f all free Yahoo! Mail accounts from 4 MB to 1 GB, and all Yahoo! Mail Plus acco
unts to 2 GB. On July 9, 2004, Yahoo! acquired e-mail provider Oddpost to add an
Ajax interface to Yahoo! Mail.[24] On October 13, 2005, Yahoo! and Microsoft an
nounced that Yahoo! Messenger and MSN Messenger would become interoperable. In 2
007, Yahoo! took out the storage meters, thus allowing users unlimited storage.[
citation needed]
Yahoo! continued acquiring companies to expand its range of services, particular
ly Web 2.0 services. Yahoo! Launchcast became Yahoo! Music on February 9, 2005.
On March 20, 2005, Yahoo! purchased photo sharing service Flickr.[25] On March 2
9, 2005, the company launched its blogging and social networking service Yahoo!
360°. In June 2005, Yahoo! acquired blo.gs, a service based on RSS feed aggregation
. Yahoo! then bought online social event calendar Upcoming.org on October 4, 200
5. Yahoo! acquired social bookmark site del.icio.us on December 9, 2005, and the
n playlist sharing community Webjay on January 9, 2006.
On August 27, 2007, Yahoo! released a new version of Yahoo! Mail. It added Yahoo
! Messenger integration. (which included Windows Live Messenger due to the netwo
rks' federation) and free text messages (not necessarily free to the receiver) t
o mobile phones in the U.S., Canada, India and the Philippines.[26]
On January 29, 2008, Yahoo! announced that the company was laying off 1,000 empl
oyees as the company had suffered severely in its inability to effectively compe
te with industry search leader Google. The cuts represented 7 percent of the com
pany's workforce of 14,300. Employees are being invited to apply for an unknown
number of new positions that are expected to open as the company expands areas t
hat promise faster growth.[27]
In February 2008, Yahoo! acquired Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Maven Networks,
a supplier of internet video players and video advertising tools, for approx. $
160 million.
Yahoo! announced on November 17, 2008, that Yang would be stepping down as CEO.[
28]
On December 10, 2008, Yahoo! began laying off 1,520 employees around the world a
s the company managed its way through the global economic downturn.[2