CNET科技资讯网报道 大卫-费罗（David Filo）还记得1994年的那一天，他和斯坦福大学的博士生杨致远（Jerry Yang）成为了好友，两人决定用互联网做一桩大生意。 他们详细讨论了利用这种新兴媒体来销售货物的各种办法，但绝大多数主意都被废弃了。开了数次会之后，费罗与杨致远又回到了原来的一个计算机研究测试项目上，他们当时将这一项目命名为“杰瑞的万维网向导”（Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web）。这是一种网络搜索目录，一种将改变他们生活的东西。一年之后，雅虎诞生。 星期三，费罗在接受采访时表示：“我们从未将雅虎列为当初的设想之中。我们当时不认为雅虎会成为一个商业企业。” 从业余爱好到网络搜索目录，再到在线媒体巨人，过去10年间，雅虎已经经历了许多的改变，它已经从新技术的偶然把握者成功的转变为互联网泡沫时代之后成功的企业。幸存者已经尝到了收益及股价上涨的甜头回报。 但从某个方面说，今日的雅虎与1995年的雅虎仍有相同之处。知情者说，尽管雅虎不再摸着石头过河，这家梦想无所不及无人不致的网络门户网站现在仍然具有冒险性。 在它无数的的业务当中，网络搜索仍然表现出色，去年，雅虎36亿美元的收入当中，网络搜索贡献了很大一部分份额。 和对手Google不一样,雅虎正在无声无息的推行起全方位服务的战略，雅虎正在尽可能为更多用户提供有价值的网络信息。在雅虎令人眼花缭乱的业务序列当中，既有在线求职网站，也有音乐视频服务，在线约会服务，新闻，网络理财工具，即时讯息工具，网络电子邮件等等也是一个不少。 今天，雅虎很多广受欢迎的服务都是在上个世纪80年代构建起来的。在公司发展的初期，这种唯心主义的企业发展观就建立起来了。 雅虎的前高级执行官Ellen Siminoff说：“我想，我们当时都以为将改变世界，我认为，我们做到了。” 尽管取得了成功, 但现任首席执行官Terry Semel将搜索收入看成是开发新产品与服务的一种手段。尽管现在还不清楚这些新产品和新服务究竟是什么，但他的目标异常清晰：保持雅虎网民的数量，推动广告业务的发展。 雅虎另外一位前高级执行官David Graves说：“Semel有经济实力，这可以让他有能力让雅虎更加大胆的朝互联网媒体公司的方向发展。” 先做再问 既使雅虎仍然在准备下一步发展，雅虎的一些前雇员却说，公司现在的运营仍然处于过去的一种惯性当中。 在它的发展初期，雅虎养成了这样的哲学，即，如果你建立了一种东西，而且它能够获得许多的点击量，那么就去运行它。很多雅虎的前雇员在接受采访的时候都谈到了这一点。当时，雅虎希望自己的员工可以贡献新主意，然后测试它们，最后就进行发布。 一位不愿意透露姓名的雅虎前职员说：“人们当时有很多创新的机会。不好的一面是，你不能和公司的其他同仁进行协作。没有谁来制定核心的路线图。” 雅虎发展神速, 1996年，雅虎急速上市，首日交易，雅虎股票价格的飙升给互联网泡沫时代火上浇油。到2000年，雅虎的收入也从1900万美元上涨至11亿美元。 但到了2001,这种黄金时代既已显现出终结的信号。2000年，互联网股票市场开始崩盘，这直接导致了风险资本的全面枯竭，主要的资金来源是那些互联网起步公司的上市。这种连锁反应最终伤及了雅虎。 变脸 面对醒悟了的华尔街分析师，满心狐疑的记者以及低靡的股价，雅虎的首席执行官Tim Koogle终于辞职。雅虎董事会选择了广受争议的Semel， 这位华纳兄弟公司的主管。此君之前从未有担任上市公司首席执行官以及高科技公司主管的经验。 搜索最终又重回雅虎的发展重点。2000年，雅虎同意在自己的搜索引擎当中使用Google的网络搜索技术。5年之后，雅虎给Google的技术使用费用负担已经相当的沉重。Google已经进入雅虎许多的业务领域当中，比如免费电子邮件以及付费搜索等等。 上一季度, Google报告的收入为10.32亿美元，仅仅比雅虎的10.78亿美元略逊一筹。 一位不愿透露姓名的雅虎前雇员表示：“搜索曾经是雅虎的核心业务，但我们轻视了Google，并在一段时间暂停了搜索方面的发展。” 雅虎2003年以17亿美元收购了Overture，许多分析师认为，这让Semel重振雄风。自从收购Overture以来，雅虎的收入已经由2003年的16亿美元上升到2004年的36亿美元。 NetcableTV公司的首席执行官Graves说：“Semel第一年半所面临的主要问题是如何稳定住雅虎。付费搜索业务稳定了雅虎。” 雅虎的未来将维系在新的利润增长领域，这些领域对雅虎的竞争者们来说可以说很难突入，而对Semel来说则比较熟悉。今年初，雅虎在加州的圣莫尼卡市租下了办公室，雅虎准备将它绝大部分的内容与娱乐业务迁移至此地。 雅虎已经与一些著名的娱乐制片人签订了协议，比如“ 飞黄腾达”（The Apprentice）与“幸存者”（Survivor）电视节目的制作人 Mark Burnett ，雅虎还获得了动画短片制造商JibJab两部动画片的独家放映权。这些协议均由Jim Moloshok负责敲定，他是前华纳兄弟公司的官员，Semel将他挖过来专门负责雅虎与好莱坞的业务。 雅虎还聘请了前ABC的官员Lloyd Braun，他主要负责雅虎媒体与娱乐方面的业务。观察家们将这视为是雅虎进军在线娱乐的又一举措，总有一天，雅虎将有可能制作出自己的节目内容来。 尽管有这些变化, 尽管它的股价与收入浮浮沉沉，雅虎相信，它的根基一如当初。 雅虎首席营运官Dan Rosensweig说：“我们从未遗忘，眼球最终将带来广告。” （编辑：孙莹） After 10 years, Yahoo still searching

By Jim Hu
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

David Filo remembers the days in 1994 when he and fellow Stanford University doctoral candidate Jerry Yang would get together with friends to conjure up big ideas for making a business out of the Internet.

The group batted around ways to sell goods through the emerging medium, but most of the ideas were scrapped. After the meetings, Filo and Yang would retreat to a trailer behind a computer research building on campus and work on a side hobby that they named "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web," a Web search directory that would change their lives. A year later it would be incorporated as Yahoo.

From hobby to commercial Web search directory to online media powerhouse, Yahoo has endured many changes during the past decade, riding a largely serendipitous wave to emerge as one of the most successful progeny of the dot-com boom. Survival has brought sweet rewards in the form of booming revenues and profits, and a surging stock price.

But in one respect, Yahoo is today much the same company that was born by accident in 1995.

Although insiders say it's no longer de rigueur to throw things against the wall just to see what will stick, the Web portal that wants to be everything to everyone is still very much in exploratory mode.

"We never thought about Yahoo as one of those ideas," Filo said in an interview in advance of the company's 10th anniversary Wednesday. (Co-founders Filo and Yang now both go by the title of "chief Yahoo.") "We weren't thinking of Yahoo as a business."

Of its myriad businesses, Web search is the standout, delivering a significant portion of the company's $3.6 billion in revenue last year.

Unlike rival Google, however, Yahoo is resting its strategy on a full service approach, delivering as much of the Web as it makes sense to offer to as many people as possible. Its dizzying array of offerings run the gamut, from online job listings to music videos to online dating services, news, financial tools, instant messaging and Web-based e-mail, just to name a few.

Much of today's most popular services were built during the go-go years in the 1990s, when building audience was the company's objective. The sense of idealistic entrepreneurialism was also infused throughout the company in its early days.

"I think we all believed we were going to change the world, and I think we did," said Ellen Siminoff, a former senior executive at the company who is now CEO of Efficient Frontier.

Despite that success, it's no secret that Yahoo CEO Terry Semel sees search revenue as a means to develop new products and services. Although it's not certain what those might be, the goal is crystal clear: Boost ad sales by keeping Web surfers on Yahoo's services longer.

"Semel has now built the economic base that empowers him to be more adventurous to move Yahoo towards being an Internet media company, whatever that turns out to mean," said David Graves, a former senior executive at Yahoo and currently CEO of NetcableTV.

Even if Yahoo is still improvising its next moves, former employees say there is no mistaking the current operation with the freewheeling days of the past.

Yahoo in its early years operated on the philosophy that if you build it and it gets lots of clicks, keep it running. This mentality fostered what most former Yahoo employees interviewed for this report described

as a bottom-up approach to growing it business. Employees were expected to foster new ideas, test them and then launch them.

"People had a lot more rope to go out and do more innovative things," said one former Yahoo executive who requested anonymity. "The downside was you didn't coordinate with the rest of the company, and nobody was holding a central road map."

Yahoo grew quickly, rushing toward an IPO in 1996 that accelerated the dot-com boom when its stock exploded on the first day and soared straight up from there. Revenues also began pouring in, jumping from $19 million to $1.1 billion by 2000.

But by 2001, there were signs that the age of innocence was coming to a dramatic end. The dot-com stock market crash in 2000 resulted in an overall drying up of venture capital money, the main source of funding for the swarm of Internet start-ups trying to go public. The ripple effect eventually hit Yahoo, which attributed most of its advertising revenues to exclusive deals with venture-capital-flush dot-coms.

Changing faces
Facing disenchanted Wall Street analysts, skeptical reporters and a stock price heading toward an all-time, single-digit low, Yahoo CEO Tim Koogle resigned. The board brought in a controversial replacement--Semel, a former studio head for Warner Bros. who had never served as CEO of a publicly traded company and had no high-tech experience.

While Yahoo's success was built off the backs of Yang and Filo's search directory, search eventually would come back to haunt the company. In June 2000, Yahoo agreed to use Google's Web search technology in its own search engine. Five years later, Yahoo has paid a heavy price for Google's ascension. Google has entered into many of Yahoo's businesses, such as free e-mail, and Google remains Overture's biggest competitor in paid search.

Last quarter, Google reported $1.032 billion in revenue, just shy of Yahoo's $1.078 billion.

"Search was a focus of the company, but we white-labeled Google and called it a day," recalled one former Yahoo executive who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Semel's seminal move, many analysts believe, came in 2003, when Yahoo acquired Overture for $1.7 billion. Since acquiring the company, Yahoo watched its revenue soar from $1.6 billion in 2003 to $3.6 billion in 2004.

"The question for Semel's first year and a half was how to fix it," said NetcableTV CEO Graves. "Paid search fixed it."

Yahoo's future could reside in new areas of growth that are harder to break into for competitors but which are much closer to Semel's expertise. Earlier this year, Yahoo signed a lease to take over a sprawling office park in downtown Santa Monica, Calif., in anticipation of moving most of its content and entertainment operations into the area.

The company has struck deals with major entertainment producers such as Mark Burnett of "The Apprentice" and "Survivor" fame, along with exclusive rights to distribute two animated films from JibJab. Both deals were lead by Jim Moloshok, a former Warner Bros. executive brought in by Semel to strike deals with Hollywood studios.

The company also hired former ABC executive Lloyd Braun to head all of Yahoo's media and entertainment properties. The hiring was considered by observers as another step for Yahoo to become an online entertainment player, opening up the possibility of creating their own content one day.

Despite all of these changes, despite all the ups and downs of the stock and its revenue, Yahoo believes its roots remain the same.

"We never lost sight that what we knew from our media background is that advertisers ultimately follow the eyeballs," Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo's chief operating officer, said in an interview.