Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008 • Hacker News Board

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#11

Post by rread » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:16 AM UTC

Yay, let's celebrate the underperforming. I suspect many Yahoo investors would rather have had their $31 5 years ago so they could have invested it in something that would actually grow.

Though, at least they've had better results than the MSFT investors.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#12

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:17 AM UTC

mmgutz wrote: post #8

Just wondering, how many people use Yahoo? It's supposed to be getting more popular but at least with my peers I don't see that trend. Is it popular outside of the USA?

I find it's more popular in less-techie and/or older circles.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#13

Post by pdog » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:18 AM UTC

The S&P 500 index was at around 1,300 at the beginning of 2008.

It's at around 1,700 today -- actually, a record high.

Of course, it reached as low as 700 to 800 in March 2009.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#14

Post by sanswork » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:19 AM UTC

mmgutz wrote: post #8

Just wondering, how many people use Yahoo? It's supposed to be getting more popular but at least with my peers I don't see that trend. Is it popular outside of the USA?

I'm guessing it's popular amongst people who install software that in turn installs a yahoo search toolbar on them that they cannot figure out how to turn off/don't bother to.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#15

Post by sanswork » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:20 AM UTC

hknozcan wrote: post #9

mmgutz wrote: post #8

Just wondering, how many people use Yahoo? It's supposed to be getting more popular but at least with my peers I don't see that trend. Is it popular outside of the USA?

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/yahoo-surpasses-goo... Strange, huh?

Yahoo has a pretty huge portfolio of sites that fit in that bucket compared with googles many(but in honesty generally unpopular outside of search and email) offerings.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#16

Post by blisterpeanuts » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:31 AM UTC

mmgutz wrote: post #8

Just wondering, how many people use Yahoo? It's supposed to be getting more popular but at least with my peers I don't see that trend. Is it popular outside of the USA?

I read a while back that they are #1 or #2 in email services. Gmail may have surpassed them, but they're still in the top 3 along with Hotmail. Email is a great tool for customer retention.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#17

Post by throw231231244 » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:32 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #14

mmgutz wrote: post #8

Just wondering, how many people use Yahoo? It's supposed to be getting more popular but at least with my peers I don't see that trend. Is it popular outside of the USA?

I'm guessing it's popular amongst people who install software that in turn installs a yahoo search toolbar on them that they cannot figure out how to turn off/don't bother to.

Or, you know, maybe people actually use a lot of their sites (fantasy sports, email, flickr, finance, entertainment news).

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#18

Post by Steko » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:33 AM UTC

mmgutz wrote: post #8

Just wondering, how many people use Yahoo? It's supposed to be getting more popular but at least with my peers I don't see that trend. Is it popular outside of the USA?

Yahoo Sports is an excellent site, I go there multiple times a day.

You asked about international: the (mostly independent) Yahoo Japan is huge and always has been; my wife and many of her friends use it as their homepage.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#19

Post by tesseractive » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:33 AM UTC

mmgutz wrote: post #8

Just wondering, how many people use Yahoo? It's supposed to be getting more popular but at least with my peers I don't see that trend. Is it popular outside of the USA?

They were kind of the definitive site for general information in the 90s, so many millions of people who started using the internet in the 90s got used to going there for news, sports, finance, weather, and some of their other verticals, as well as things like email.

A lot of those people haven't had any good reason to switch to anything else, so that's what they use. This tracks with the way people choose offline brands like toothpaste and such -- once people get used to buying a brand, most of them tend to stick with it until they have a clear reason to change.

That's actually why the transition to mobile is so crucial for them -- those people still want to keep up with sports and weather and everything else on their phones, but they're more likely to use an app than a website. If Yahoo loses their userbase in the transition to mobile, those users are probably never coming back.

Re: Yahoo Shares Top $31, The Price Microsoft Offered In 2008

#20

Post by badave » Fri, Sep 20, 2013, 12:34 AM UTC

mikeryan wrote: post #2

With inflation that number is around $33 bucks. But jeez what a silly metric, who's happier that deal didn't happen - Yahoo or Microsoft?

Yahoo -- I think they were concerned about getting infected by M$'s culture.