Final Nail in the Coffin for Yahoo Groups Lands Dec. 15
Yahoo Groups will shut down for good on Dec. 15, a year after company parent Verizon decided to gut most of the functionality from the 20-year-old discussion board platform.
Yahoo said supporting the platform "no longer fit" with its long-term strategy, citing low use. At the same time, Yahoo is indicating it's moving away from hosting user-generated content.
"Yahoo Groups has seen a steady decline in usage over the last several years," Yahoo said in a FAQ about the shutdown. "Over that same period, we've witnessed unprecedented levels of engagement across our properties as customers seek out premium, trustworthy content."
"A disaster for the galaxy, Captain. The central brain is damaged. The memory core is burned out. The loss to the galaxy may be irretrievable." -- Spock
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @10:27PM (1 child)
Several of the Yahoo groups I enjoy have moved to Groups.IO which seems to be just fine, at least for now.
The original Yahoo groups functioned (as far as I could see) as email-relays only for the last year or so--an email sent to the group address would be forwarded to the members. But there was no storage or group message archive and no central web page anymore. It wasn't a terrible way for Yahoo to shut down, I got a few emails from Yahoo members and directed them to the new "home" for the group.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 16 2020, @03:05AM
Yup, just got an email mentioning a switch to groups.io
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @10:28PM (4 children)
Which of yous remember Yahoo's TV commercials? Don't remember exactly, either, but some of them were shown on Super Bowl broadcasts, I think.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 14 2020, @11:02PM (3 children)
I remember the AOL disks! The thousands and thousands of AOL coasters.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @11:12PM (1 child)
AOL's early days were actually entertaining, when you didn't/couldn't sign up for a "proper" ISP or weren't hip to local BBS. All you needed was a computer, a modem, a phone line, and, of course, the AOL disc.
Whatever happened to that guy that founded AOL?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @11:36PM
lmgtfy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL#1983%E2%80%931991:_Early_years [wikipedia.org]
This is probably the founder (of several) that you remember?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Case [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 15 2020, @03:39PM
I remember when AOL was sued by at least one state attorney general. For selling 10,000 tickets to a theater that could only hold 3,000 people. Or that's the analogy he used. Basically, AOL way oversold it's actual capacity. It wasn't necessarily easy to find a local dial up number, and if you could it was always busy signals.
I remember when AOL poisoned and infected Usenet with the unwashed swarm of AOL users.
I remember when AOL, trying to stay relevant, added a web browser to its client software.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Mykl on Wednesday October 14 2020, @10:28PM (3 children)
Indeed. Just think of how many Frosty Piss, Frist Psots and First Posts will be lost for ever...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 15 2020, @03:44PM
I have (or had?) hundreds of yahoo email addresses. Back in the day you could create them, even in a semi automated fashion. No phone number was required. Great for a disposable email address.
I would observe that it would be (*cough*) possible (*cough*) for someone to use a script with many such accounts to moderation bomb or boost comments in yahoo forums.
There is a truth to "a million voices cried out", but I would say only hundreds.
I haven't even thought about, or used yahoo for at least a dozen years.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 15 2020, @03:49PM
Another fun thing about yahoo forums, from back in the day . . .
You could manipulate the POST parameters, but do it conveniently as GET parameters, and continue to post and reply and converse on a topic that had been deleted by yahoo.
Conversations that were invisible to the general public, and thus fairly private. But you couldn't do it directly through the UI without hand manipulating URLs.
Few knew how to do this. It wasn't difficult to deduce how to do it. The fact that it could be done speaks to the poor state of yahoo's implementation.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Friday October 16 2020, @01:49PM
I wonder how much of Yahoo groups is archived anywhere as a memory of the early internet?
Some? https://archive.org/details/archiveteam_yahoogroups [archive.org]
Shouldn't such archives be a priority of the US Library of Congress?
Rather than even made fun of?
"These crusaders want to preserve ‘human culture’ online. Their latest target: Yahoo Groups."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/11/these-crusaders-want-preserve-human-culture-online-their-latest-target-yahoo-groups/ [washingtonpost.com]
"The team of volunteers Scott founded — “rogue archivists, programmers, writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage” — has spent a decade hopping from one online obliteration to the next, capturing whatever they can in a public repository called the Wayback Machine. The Archive Team, as his group is known, keeps a “Deathwatch” of websites in various stages of shutdown (“Likely to Die,” “Dying,” “Dead as a Doornail”); Yahoo discards feature prominently. ... It was just the latest crisis for an ad hoc network of digital archivists who think we will one day wish we had been better record keepers of a world increasingly lived online. Those archivists say Yahoo has blocked their attempts at coordinated preservation of the Yahoo Groups forums, deepening their frustrations. “If you burn down a house, you can still kind of make out the foundations,” Scott told The Washington Post. “But with a digital website, it’ll just be gone.” The move to scrub the Yahoo Groups archives may be infuriating digital historians, but the company says it is just adapting to an ever-shifting Internet landscape. ... Farrelly also knows someone trying to capture more than 100 beekeeping groups, and someone passionate about genealogy and adoption support circles. Another person is focusing on astronomy groups filled with photos they say may not exist anywhere else. “It’s just depressing to think how much is going to be lost,” Farrelly said."
Is the Cloud and related communications-as-a-service ultimately just another term for Orwell's "Memory Hole"?
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday October 15 2020, @01:16AM (2 children)
I'm surprised they are still around, after all is Yahoo even around anymore except as a name in someones trademark portfolio? I guess at a time it sort of filled some kind of purpose but as the once mighty dinosaurs of the internet age fall one by one to new the young and agile Google and Facebook-Rex they fade away sort of missed by nobody except future archeologists.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 15 2020, @01:36AM (1 child)
It's generational. Baby Boomers and older Gen-X used Yahoo when web portals were all the rage. They used them for email, to organize knitting groups, play chess online, etc. Huge numbers of them still do because that's what they're used to and it's what they like. Yahoo generates revenue off all of them. Yahoo also has a huge number of paid email users they use to market to them. I saw a presentation from Yahoo sales people once who were trying to sell my company on why we should advertise with them; it's astonishing how many people still use that platform and how much money Yahoo is still able to make off them. I suspect AOL is not dissimilar.
But it shouldn't be all that strange given how little mindshare Microsoft has these days, while their user base and revenues remain quite strong.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 15 2020, @03:51PM
Hey, read where I posted just a few posts above yours to see what was done back in the day.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Thursday October 15 2020, @03:42AM (1 child)
Time to put it to sleep.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 15 2020, @03:57PM
Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray Facebook to receive yahoo's sheep.
If Facebook should be regulated before I wake.
I pray Twitter their souls to fake.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday October 15 2020, @05:40AM (1 child)
while it lasts. It'll be a collector some day!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 15 2020, @03:59PM
Are you interested in buying some slightly used yahoo accounts?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by RedIsNotGreen on Thursday October 15 2020, @07:33AM (1 child)
For anyone still using YG, what are the alternatives out there?
Who can a group move to that isn't also in the nursing home already?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 15 2020, @12:02PM
Try Groups.IO As noted in frist piss, many groups have moved there. The move (in one case I know about) was announced over the limited Yahoo groups which still function in "email only"...but it sounds like that option is closing fast. If you wait until Yahoo groups shuts down completely, you may not have any way to contact the members of your group(s).