Yahoo is a company that summer is very familiar with.

First, its founder, Jerry Yang, is a Chinese, and Yahoo was once the hottest portal in the world, so he is regarded as a representative of the success of Chinese people and is often mentioned by mainland media, and therefore has the highest popularity in China.

In comparison, even if the market value of companies such as Amazon, Oracle, and adobe are far greater than Yahoo’s, their founders are far less well-known than Jerry Yang.

Second, Yahoo successfully entered mainland China that year, and was once the leader of mainland Internet companies. Yahoo's free email service attracted tens of millions of users back then.

Xia Tian was one of Yahoo Email users back then. He sent a lot of emails to his friends, classmates, and family, and these emails also recorded his growth.

But unfortunately, Yahoo Email, which was originally announced to be permanently free, actually closed its service, which made many memories of summer vain.

Yahoo was founded in 1994 and was listed in 1996 (last year), with a market value of up to 800 million US dollars. But in fact, Yahoo is not very profitable at all now. The net profit last year was only 90,000 US dollars, which is not as good as the money earned in a minute in summer.

But Xia Tian knew that Yahoo still has great potential.

Because Yahoo provides portals and navigation services.

Portal websites are websites that provide comprehensive Internet services, such as news, videos, pictures, games, etc., just like the current groom, NetEase, Suogu, etc.

The navigation service is similar to the current Baiduhao123 website. It integrates a large number of website links and categories. As long as netizens log in to this website, they can find what they want based on the links on it.

Navigation services are very important for website traffic. Thinking back then, the traffic brought by hao123 to whiteness accounted for 30% of its daily visits. Therefore, whiteness quickly acquired the website for 50 million yuan.

The early Internet was very primitive. You need to enter the IP address to log in to a website. Netizens must know the IP address when surfing the Internet, otherwise they will not be able to log in to that website, so it was not easy to go online at that time.

Not to mention, the internet speed was pitifully slow at that time, only a few dozen kbs. Compared with the theoretical internet speed of the 4g network is about one hundred megabytes, which is several hundred times worse.

Moreover, the Internet fee was very expensive at that time, and it was about traffic rather than monthly subscriptions. Therefore, the cost of trial and error among netizens was very high. If you didn’t find what you wanted on one website, then it would cost a lot of money to change to another website.

Because the portal provides a very complete service, netizens can solve a variety of needs by logging into this website, which saves them a lot of time and energy and does not have to browse one website at a time. Therefore, portal websites were very popular in the early Internet era.

Yahoo's portal was very good at that time, and it was known as the world's largest portal. In 1997, USA Today even commented that it was "the most abundant content, most entertainment value, the most attractive and easiest to use online platform", which also attracted a large number of users to visit.

...

However, Xia Tian knew that although Yahoo had achieved brilliant past achievements, it did not transform in time and kept up with the needs of netizens, so it slowly went downhill and finally closed down.

Because with the development of the Internet, especially the popularization of online knowledge and the increasing convenience of accessing the Internet, netizens have new demands for websites.

What they need is deeper and more detailed network services. For example, playing games, they need a larger game library, more game strategies, and more players who can discuss together.

For example, online dating, the bbs chat room provided by the portal is not private enough, nor convenient enough, and I want a simpler and more private communication platform.

For example, videos, netizens want to see more videos, not just short news jokes. For example, buying a car, netizens want to see more accurate test drive experiences, not just car manufacturers send news releases.

Although portals can provide these services, it has to be said that they are just a simple taste. After all, each professional website has its unique features, and it cannot be done by spending money alone.

For example, Souhu has also made videos and invested a lot of money, but in terms of popularity, it is not even as popular as Bilibili. Baidu has also made takeaway, but he still can't compare to Meituan and Ele.me.

Therefore, the large and comprehensive portal website gradually lost the favor of the people. On the contrary, the "small and sophisticated" professional websites are more popular among netizens.

For example, when shopping, people can go to Taobao; when making friends, people can go to meager; when games, people can go to steam; when buying cars, people can go to Autohome.

As for navigation websites, they are basically replaced by search engines. After all, search engines can provide more content and are more in line with the appetite of netizens.

In order to cater to the needs of netizens, major portals are also rushing to transform. For example, NetEase mainly plays games, the groom changes to blogs and Weibo, searching arcs to promote videos, etc. Although not all of them have successfully transformed, at least they all survived.

However, Yahoo gradually lags behind because its transformation is too slow and has not kept up with the pace of the times. When it is at its highest, it has a market value of 100 billion US dollars. But when it closes, even 5 billion US dollars is very barely enough. It can be said that it has lost to the times.

...

"Boss, do you want to invest in these three projects?" Michelle asked Xia Tian curiously.

She saw Xia Tian staring at these three documents in a daze, and seemed to be very interested in investing.

When Xia Tian heard this, he waved his hand.

Now is the peak period for Internet entrepreneurship, in other words, the bubble is also very large. For example, Yahoo only made a profit of 90,000 US dollars last year, but its market value has exceeded 800 million US dollars, which is too outrageous. Even if it has the potential to grow, this price is not what summer wants. He likes to pick up bargains, and without dozens or even hundreds of times the profit, it will not impress him.

What's more, Xia Tian knew that in the late 1990s and early 20th century, the US Internet bubble would explode. A large number of Internet sites went bankrupt, and even well-known websites such as Amazon and Yahoo were in danger. Back then, NetEase's market value fell to only 20 million US dollars. So, that was the time to copy the company in summer.

Now, he just needs to quietly watch these Internet buildings stand up and entertain guests, and the building collapses. At that time, it will be the time for him to get a great harvest.

"Boss, then what do you want to invest in?" Michelle couldn't help asking in confusion when she saw that Xia Tian was unwilling and that person was unwilling.

"I want to buy Apple." Xia Tian smiled slightly.
Chapter completed!