Verizon buys out Yahoo for a mere 4.8 billion dollars, putting an end to Yahoo’s long struggle to remain as a stand alone company. The telecom giant Verizon will merge Yahoo with AOL. In the past decade, Yahoo made some desperate attempts to stay alive and capture the attention and loyalty of global users while competitors like Google and Facebook mercilessly butchered Yahoo’s bleak chance of survival.

Internal conflicts and lay-offs plagued the company which at its hay days was one of the most valued tech companies in the world. Yahoo was valued at $125 billion in 2000. Yahoo was founded by Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang in the year 1994 and was originally created as a type of directory for the internet. It was initially called "Jerry and Dave's Guide to the World Wide Web" and later the name Yahoo was officially announced; the founders famously called it as "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." The Yahoo.com domain name was created company was incorporated on March 2 1995 with funding from Sequoia Capital.

In the year 1998 Google was launched and little did the world believe that Google would tower over Yahoo and dominate the internet space. Maybe Yahoo’s days were numbered from then on, the company was in denial, so were the bunch of loyal users who will forever remember Yahoo for its then groundbreaking internet offerings such as Yahoo News, Yahoo Messenger, Yahoo Answers and so on.

Read : Adieu, Yahoo Messenger!

With this acquisition, the future of Flickr and Tumblr, one of the Yahoo’s most popular services remain uncertain. Flickr was acquired by Yahoo in the year 2005.In a bid to lure younger users Yahoo acquired Tumblr in the year 2013. Yahoo reported a loss of $4.4 billion for 2015, and in the most recent quarter lost another $440 million. Marissa Mayer a former Google executive roped in by Yahoo to be its Messiah in July 2012, but even Mayer failed to resurrect the sinking Yahoo.

In the coming days, the world will know what the future holds for Yahoo.

Tags : Yahoo, Yahoo Messenger, Google, Facebook, Flickr