History of Yahoo! The two founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University started their guide in a campus trailer in February 1994 as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. At this time who would ever guessed that this humble beginning would evolve into a global brand.
Initially the name was “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” but was renamed as Yahoo in April 1994. Yahoo! is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." In April 1995, Sequoia Capital agreed to fund Yahoo! with an initial investment of nearly $2 million. Yahoo! launched a highly-successful IPO in April 1996 with a total of 49 employees.
On 8 March 1997, Yahoo! acquired online communications company Four11. Four11's webmail service, Rocketmail, became Yahoo! Mail. In December 2002, Yahoo! acquired Inktomi. Today, Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet communications, commerce and media company that offers a comprehensive branded network of services to more than 345 million individuals each month worldwide.
The company also provides online business and enterprise services designed to enhance the productivity and Web presence of Yahoo!'s clients. According to Web traffic analysis companies, the domain yahoo.com attracted at least 1.575 billion visitors annually by 2008.
History of Yahoo!
