My Love & Hate Relationship with Yahoo!
Posted on: April 24, 2008 at 3:48 am | Posted under: Technology
I am starting to feel like Steve Ballmer these days. No, I don’t have a ton of money to throw around and I am not threatening other companies, but I do have a love and hate relationship with Yahoo!
When I was young, our family bought an IBM Aptiva and we had a dot-matrix printer to go along with it. Soon enough, after lots of complaining from my sister and I, we got internet access. I still remember signing up with Yahoo! for an email account and being able to chat with my friends on ICQ, those were the days. A much more simpler time back then, where you still did more conversing on the phone and in person than via email or online chat.
My first website (if you can call it that) was running on Yahoo! Geocities. I had the free account, so it was riddled with ads, but I managed to get by. I eventually took that site down once I got to college. Why? The story is here.
During college, my love for Yahoo! soured. I am not completely sure what it was that first triggered it, but I was not drawn to any of their services and I even shut down my account. My primary email was the one provided to me by Mansfield University. As the years went on, I just couldn’t bring myself back to using Yahoo!
Everything took a turn for the worse the summer before my senior year of college. A fellow committee member at PRSSA gave me an invite for Gmail. Once I setup my account and started using it, I never looked back. Gmail was the way that email should be – a clean and simple interface not bogged down by ads or flashy content. I was truly happy with my new email account.
Here we are, 2008 – I still can’t stand Yahoo! and what they offer. Clunky email, having to pay to access your account with Outlook or Windows Mobile, horrible directions and time estimates with MapQuest, and applications that cannot remain stable. The only reason I even have an account with them – Flickr. I was so upset when I heard that my favorite photo site was being bought by the company I despised the most. I have learned to live with it, but like would be easier if I didn’t have to deal with them.
So, I don’t like Yahoo!, and I feel that they should just roll over and let Microsoft buy them. They need to quit acting tough and just take it like a man and stop this damn dance once and for all.
That’s my story on Yahoo!, what’s yours?
Cheers!