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Yahoo! co-founders Jerry Yang (C) and
David Filo (R) pose with chief executive Terry Semel in front
of the NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square in New York after
ringing the opening bell at NASDAQ on March 2, 2005 as part of
ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the web site. (REUTERS/Peter
Morgan) | |
Yahoo, one of the net's most iconic companies, is
celebrating its 10th anniversary this week.
The web portal has undergone remarkable change since it was set up by
Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang in a campus
trailer.
The students wanted a way of keeping track of their web-based
interests.
The categories lists they devised soon became popular to hundreds of
people and the two saw business potential in their idea.
Originally dubbed "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web" the firm
adopted the moniker Yahoo
because the founders liked the dictionary definition of a yahoo as a rude,
unsophisticated, uncouth
person.
The term was popularised by the 18th Century satirist Jonathan Swift in
his classic novel, Gulliver's Travels.
"We were certainly not sophisticated or civilised," Mr Yang told
reporters ahead of the anniversary, which will be officially recognised on
2 March.
They did have business brains however, and in April 1995 persuaded
venture capitalists Sequoia Capital, which also invested in Apple Computer
and Cisco Systems, to fund Yahoo to the tune
of $2m (￡1.04m).
A second round of funding followed in the autumn and the company
floated in April 1996 with fewer than 50 employees.
Now the firm employs 7,600 workers and insists its dot-com culture of
"work hard, play hard" still remains.
It is one of just a handful of survivors of the dot-com crash although
it now faces intense rivalry from firms such as Google, MSN and AOL.
Jerry Yang, who remains the firm's "Chief Yahoo", is proud of what the
company has achieved.
"In just one decade, the internet has changed the way consumers do just
about everything - and it's been a remarkable and wonderful experience,"
he said.
Through it all, we wanted to build products that satisfied our users
wants and needs, but it's even more than that - it's to help every one of
us to discover, get more done, share and interact."
(BBC) |
作為最具特色的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)企業(yè)之一，雅虎本周迎來了它的10周歲生日。
從創(chuàng)立至今，這個門戶網(wǎng)站經(jīng)歷了巨大變遷。當(dāng)初，斯坦福大學(xué)的兩名學(xué)生大衛(wèi)·菲羅和楊致遠(yuǎn)在校園的一輛拖車?yán)飫?chuàng)建了雅虎網(wǎng)的前身。
這兩位學(xué)子希望找到一種方式來記錄他們個人對互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的興趣軌跡。
他們設(shè)計的網(wǎng)頁目錄列表很快贏得了很多人的青睞，他們看到了自己的創(chuàng)意中潛在的商機。
他們的公司最初以“杰瑞的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)網(wǎng)址指南”命名，后來采用了Yahoo這個綽號，因為兩位創(chuàng)始人都喜歡字典上對yahoo的定義：不通世故、粗魯而單純的人。
18世紀(jì)的諷刺作家喬納森·斯威夫特在他的經(jīng)典小說《格列弗游記》中曾用過yahoo一詞，從此yahoo一詞開始風(fēng)靡起來。
“當(dāng)時我們確實不老練，也沒什么涵養(yǎng)?！睏钪逻h(yuǎn)在公司10周年到來之際對記者說，3月2日是雅虎公司成立的正式紀(jì)念日。
然而，他們的確具有商業(yè)頭腦。1995年4月份，他們成功勸說“紅杉資金”風(fēng)險投資公司為雅虎投資200萬美元（104萬英鎊），“紅杉”還投資過蘋果電腦公司和思科系統(tǒng)公司。
當(dāng)年秋天，公司獲得了第二輪投資。1996年4月公司正式成立，當(dāng)時只有不到50名員工。
現(xiàn)在，總共擁有7600名員工的雅虎公司仍然堅持其最初的網(wǎng)站文化信條——“努力工作，盡情享受”。
雅虎是在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司大戰(zhàn)中僅有的少數(shù)幸存者之一，盡管它如今面臨著Google、MSN和AOL等公司強有力的競爭。
楊致遠(yuǎn)至今仍是公司的“雅虎酋長”，他對公司所取得的成就感到驕傲。
他說：“僅僅10年時間，互聯(lián)網(wǎng)已經(jīng)改變了網(wǎng)民們處理所有事情的方式，這是一種非凡的美妙體驗?！?
“自始至終，我們都希望我們的產(chǎn)品能夠滿足用戶的所想所需，但我們并不僅僅局限于此——我們希望能夠幫助每一個人去發(fā)現(xiàn)，去更多地實踐、分享和交流。”
（中國日報網(wǎng)站譯） |
Updated: 2005-03-03 10:45