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If I'd done my first browsing a few months later, chances are I would have done it with Andreessen and Bina's followup to Mosaic, Netscape Navigator. In 1995, Netscape and Yahoo were pretty much synonymous with the Web. If there were two companies who did more to popularize the Internet, I can't think of 'em.
And today, February 1st, is turning out to be a sad day for both Web pioneers.
First Netscape. Back on December 28th, the company--which had long since become an atrophied limb of AOL--announced that it was ending all support for its browser as of February 1st, 2008. (t was not exactly a tragedy, since it's been eons since Netscape was relevant and Firefox, the open-source offshoot of the original Netscape browser, is flourishing. But it still made me feel like observing a moment of silence in recognition of the passing of a once-great piece of software.
(Side note: About a third of PCWorld.com visitors today came via Firefox; less than one-fifth of one percent came using Netscape.)
Then February 1st rolled around--and with it the news that the much-rumored Microsoft takeover of Yahoo is a reality...or at least will become one if Steve Ballmer has anything to say about it. Given that it's not yet a done deal, and we don't know exactly what Microsoft intends to do with the company if its $44.6 billion offer is accepted, it would be melodramatic to call this the end of Yahoo. Presumably it's going to be a very long time before the Yahoo name disappears, and many of the services will hang around, too. But name me even one challenged company that became more like its old self once someone else bought it out.
Confession time: While I was writing this post, I learned that Netscape announced a reprieve for its browser last week--it gets a whole additional month of life before it goes bye-bye. So Feburary 1st won't go down in history as the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of both Netscape and Yahoo.
But I still feel like I'm beginning February in mourning for two old friends...
I first started using the Web in 1999. First browser was Netscape 3, and first mail client was the free, tiny Eudora. (I remember entering my first URL in the address bar and wondering when the web page would show up. I hadn't learned about pressing Enter at that point.)
We got two nice printed manuals teaching the software. The Netscape manual was a very fun and entertaining narrative of a guy coming to his parents' home and teaching his family to use the internet--Web, newsgroups, gopher, etc. with Netscape. I spent a lot of time reading that friendly guide and having fun with Netscape and its `What's New', `Best of the Web' menus.
My first experience with the web was around 1993, with Mosaic. Back then, the web was just an interesting way to exchange information, without much real commercial purpose. Boy has that changed in fifteen years! Although Microsoft missed the first phase of the web, it clearly does not want to miss out on the next phase. My guess is that Microsoft is more interested in Yahoo's eyeballs and customer list than in their technology. If this merger takes place, I expect some of Yahoo's portal to be merged into Microsoft Live (or whatever they decide to call it), and the rest of it to disappear. Time will tell.
Craig Herberg
XP is one of the best!
This megalomaniac rich kid, aka, Bill Gates, and his arrogant "experts"
created the monster, Windows Live, that is the stupidest of all of their ideas!!!
"But name me even one challenged company that became more like its old self once someone else bought it out."
Harley Davidson became more like it's old self when the employees bought it (back) from AMF. Technically it was a buyback except the employees didn't actually own it before AMF.