Yahoo Picks Joins The Deadpool
Duncan Riley
13 comments »
Nearly missed new years day was an announcement from Yahoo that Yahoo Picks service was to shut after 12 years.
Launched in August 1995, Yahoo Picks highlighted the best of the web in a weekly, then later daily update service in an era prior to blogging. The site eventually evolved to a full blown blog in 2004.
Many new internet users in the mid 90s started on the web in roughly this order: Yahoo’s Front Page, Yahoo’s Directory , then for cool sites they’d head to Yahoo Picks. I can still remember using Yahoo Picks in late 95; there wasn’t an awful lot else around and the sites Yahoo picked at that stage were often amazing, particularly for a new internet user like myself at that time.
Yahoo did not post the reasons for shutting the service, but in an age of mass produced and often automated link swapping and recommendations, the service is by comparison archaic, and probably not seeing an awful lot of traffic. Many of the original pages are still up, complete with their mid 90s livery. One shot below, and a direct link here for those wanting to go for a walk down memory lane.
Sadly Yahoo Picks joins the TechCrunch Deadpool.
hopefully we can see better services from yahoo as they shutdown unwanted properties
It’s deeply saddening that they even have one person that wasted his time updating that site. Should’ve closed in the late 90s along with the bubble burst.
I think Yahoo is in a competition with “Warner group of companies” to see who can accumulate the most deadpool listings on techcrunch!
Jon
Unfortunate.. though that’s so Web 1.0…
I remember the days when I used to “surf” the web because it was fun and new and exciting. These days its a part of everyday life and used for a range of tasks.
I thought they used to have a “what’s hot” section? Was this replaced by the “picks”?
Awwwl….well, we’ll always have Feb. 16, 2004: http://picks.yahoo.com/picks/i/20040216.html
I remember I had subscribed to Yahoo Pics newsletter called “Yahoo daily wire”and the last newsletter I received was in March last year..
Oh boy , what a sad news.
an old site of mine was picked by them year 99
I remember that for many years I used to look at this site every single day; it was the best place to find out about good new sites. Unfortunately, it started going downhill years back. It went from providing 5 sites daily to 3 sites daily, and most of those 3 sites seemed to be the newest promotional sites for new movies. Now, I guess, it was down to one.
I still believe a site like this could be useful, but Yahoo more or less abandoned this site a long time ago. Yahoo might as well abandon its directory too, now. (Do people even remember that Yahoo was not a search engine for many years?)
hi, thought you might like to know that your deadpool links don’t work. can’t access the list. doesn’t return a 404 error though.
message as follows:
“Not Found”
“Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here”
ps: is your blog compatible with OpenID yet?
Companies must evolve and as part of that evolution, in a web environment, services will become obsolete and eventually shut down. But 12 years … WOW!! That is a long time in web years (note: In internet years is not that long)
http://www.thewebrunner.com will be around to try to fill the yahoo picks gap. I believe the site will be missed by some folks who aren’t into the whole “web 2″concept or don’t know a stumble from a digg (or frankly care).