Yahoo had a web site, e-mail and photo sharing. It didn’t have micro-blogging, nor was it able to leverage the market- and mind-share of Facebook’s initial applications publishers.
It was self-obssessed and under takeover threat, but it had great brand value, and most people would accept that it is run be people that will take customer privacy more seriously; their business model treats their users as customers, not commodity (eyeballs).
Yahoo is not a secret garden either, which should make it more attractive, you can use it to share with non-yahooers. Is it just that the deal, “Your privacy in exchange for e-mail and micro-blogging”, is worth it? Admittedly, it’s initial growth was driven by teenager adoption, but why take up with Facebook and not Yahoo?
Yahoo was almost there. Interesting how close you can be and miss!
This http://ht.ly/3GIDo Techcrunch article looks at Yahoo’s rise and fall, with a very pretty graphic.
The Techcrunch article, see above, states that Yahoo turned down Facebook during its buying spree years. Oops!