I'm surprised that AOL isn't really discussed in this article. I always assumed Yahoo's ethos, as the one-stop shop on the internet ("We didn’t want to call it a portal, because a portal is a door to somewhere else, and we wanted people to stay there") came straight out of AOL's playbook. What I know for sure is that I, and a lot of other people, immediately felt comfortable with Yahoo when we first started using the internet because we were so used to AOL's vision of how you connect "online".
I think the connection run strong - I'd go as far as saying that Yahoo and AOL failed for the same reason. To survive at their inflated valuations they had to be everything to everyone, which stretched their vision thin. Meanwhile, it was always impossible to do everything, so smaller, more agile players came in and etched away at their business models.
> To survive at their inflated valuations they had to be everything to everyone, which stretched their vision thin
Your comment is spot on.
It also handcuffed them to their established business model(s) and "properties", because they couldn't afford to take a revenue hit or self-cannibalize to transition to the next S-curve eating the world. Given that, demise is inevitable.
I think the connection run strong - I'd go as far as saying that Yahoo and AOL failed for the same reason. To survive at their inflated valuations they had to be everything to everyone, which stretched their vision thin. Meanwhile, it was always impossible to do everything, so smaller, more agile players came in and etched away at their business models.