music to yahoo’s ears

April 7, 2004

the latest good earnings news at yahoo and the announced 2 for 1 stock split is yet one more indication that the companies operating in the internet space have gained traction. it gives the kind of validation the internet sector deserves.

yahoo has been making a number of right moves, not the least of which has been diversification. perhaps with the emergence of google, it saw the writing on the wall that simply being a search engine is not enough (remember altavista?)
so today, yahoo is a multi-functional company and is reaping the benefits. from advertising, to email, to e-commerce, it keeps re-investing and refreshing itself lest become another forgotten dotcom darling.

they even managed to get to my wallet through their launchcast product. yahoo launchcast is music radio played online. it has a sleek design and it can quickly adapt to user's music preferences. no, it's not song on demand, but as the user coaches the product using its rating system, it learns to play the kind of music that the user actually likes.

after about a year of using the product for free, i was hooked. i plunked down the subscription fee to have unfettered access to all of launchcast options (the free version has some restrictions). and so i became another unwitting benefactor to yahoo's bottom-line.