Finding your way around the World Wide Web was the topic of the July 18, 1995 conference hosted by Business Week Online. The guests were Jerry Yang and David Filo, founders of Yahoo Corp., whose Yahoo Web site is a directory of thousands of other sites on the Web. They were accompanied by Joan O'C. Hamilton, a correspondent in Business Week's San Francisco bureau and author of a BW Online story about Yahoo. You can find her story under Computer Room Extras, which is in The Computer Room under the What's New icon on BW Online's opening screen.
OnlineHost: Good evening and welcome! If the World Wide Web is where it's at for you, then Yahoo Corp. has probably caught your attention. Its Web site-- http://www.yahoo.com--is a comprehensive, wide-ranging, and hip guide to thousands of other sites on the Web. Yahoo, the creation of two Stanford University graduate students, has recently rounded up funding from Sequoia Capital. Now, its goal is to turn what began as a hobby into a full-fledged business. What are the secrets and the potential of the Web? And what are the challenges of running a Web business? Here to discuss those questions, among others, are Yahoo's founders, David Filo and Jerry Yang.
David Filo, 29, is from Moss Bluff, La. He received a BS in Computer Engineering from Tulane University and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He is currently on a leave of absence from his PhD work in Electrical Engineering at Stanford, and complains that he has less and less time to help round up Jerry's errant golf balls.
Jerry Yang, 26, is from San Jose, Calif. He received both his BS and his MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, and is also on leave from the university, where he is also a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering. Jerry says he hates losing golf balls.
Joining David and Jerry onstage tonight is Joan O'C. Hamilton (JoanOcBW), who has covered technology in the San Francisco bureau of Business Week since 1983, specializing in biotechnology, health, and medicine. Ms. Hamilton holds undergraduate degrees in political science and journalism from Stanford University, and her online-only story on Yahoo is presently posted under Computer Room Extras in The Computer Room, an area you can find under BW Online's What's New icon. Tonight's moderator is Bob Arnold (BobABW), a Business Week senior editor and editor of Business Week Online.
BobABW: Hi everyone, and welcome. Jerry's here, as Yahoos6012, and David's on the way. Hi Joan and Jerry, and welcome.
Yahoos6012: Hi everyone. Bob, thanks for having me.
JoanOCBW: Hello.
BobABW: Joan, would you like to start things off?
Yahoos6012: Be kind, be gentle.
JoanOCBW: Sure -- Jerry, we're bombarded with Internet stories every day in the paper. What's the hype-to-reality ratio running, would you say?
Yahoos6012: Boy, this is gonna test my typing speed. There definitely is a lot of hype and speculation on the Net today. Lots of it is based around the globalness and international nature of the Net and Web. It is really a level playing field for publishers and info seekers alike.
BobABW: IrishBand wants to get right to the point.Question: Can Yahoo help in bringing viewers to a Web site? How?
Yahoos6012: Boy, tough crowd. Can Yahoo help bring viewers? It depends. We are not an Internet access provider per se. What Yahoo is -- it's a massive Web site that contains "directory-like" information for people to navigate on the Net. So ONCE you get on the Net, you can use Yahoo to get you around...
JoanOCBW: Jerry, is the U.S. leading the way in terms of cool Web sites? What are other countries doing?
Yahoos6012: The U.S. has its share, but I think the fact is that other people in other countries can and do have tons of good stuff. For example, one of the Web classics has been the WebLouvre from France.
BobABW: Folks, we've just been joined by David Filo--Yahoo df.
Yahoo df: Hi.
BobABW: Here's one for either of you:Question: Do you see the WWW becoming truly "interactive," showing audio and video clips right on the page rather than dowloading?
Yahoos6012: Someday, definitely. Today's technology doesn't allow for that (low bandwidth, etc.). But there are a number of emerging technologies that will enable much more interactivity in the future (such as cablemodems, etc.).
BobABW: Bgr527 goes next:Question: Any advice about HTML programming? Any favorite tips or tricks you'd like to share?
Yahoo df: There are quite a few books available today that cover these topics. The ones I'm most familiar with are the books by Dave Taylor and Mary Morris. Both seem to cover the basics as well as talking about some of the more advanced features. As far a tip, at Yahoo we try to write really basic HTML that we are sure will work across all browsers out there. Unfortunately, the common denominator is pretty low right now, which means we can't be too creative.
BobABW: Bgr gets another shot:Question: How can we inform you of our URL so that you can link to us?
Yahoos6012: You can inform Yahoo of your URL by going to the category you would like to be in, and click on the add button in Yahoo, and fill out the form. We'll try to list you as soon as possible.
BobABW: Here's a word from CTAngus, a fan:Question: I have just entered so I do not know all the questions asked, but I want to say the Yahoo is wonderful, but would like to know if we will ever be able to access REAL humans from around the world for a chat? Thanks for your assistance.
Yahoo df: Currently, when users are in Yahoo, they are essentially there all by themselves, even though there are actually many other users (there) at the same time. We would really like to be able to connect the users together. This makes the most sense in some of the specific categories we have so that people will be able to communicate with others interested in the same topics. So currently we are looking at various technologies to allow for this type of chatting. Unfortunately the state of Web chatting software is not quite there yet. But as that technology develops, we'll certainly be taking advantage of it.
BobABW: Esprit10 asks a question for all the latecomers:Question: What's Yahwho (sic)? I don't know.
Yahoos6012: Yah Who? Yahoo is a site on the World Wide Web (address: http://www.yahoo.com). You can get through via the Web by typing the above address in. The purpose of Yahoo is to provide an organized, hierarchical way to search and discover Internet content. As many of you know, the Internet is composed of tons of info that is decentralized and heterogeneous. What Yahoo tries to do is present a quasi-intuitive interface, plus a searchable directory so that people can narrow down to what they want to find.... I know it's vague, but you gotta try it to see what I mean.... Currently we have about 50,000 entries categorized, and we have pretty fine-grained categories, anything from art to zoology...
JoanOCBW: Jerry, what's your definition of a great Web page -- and what are common problems with Web pages?
Yahoos6012: A great Web page is one that has a combination of excellent content, and/or cool graphics, and/or nice navigational (interface/interactivity) features. Not everything needs to be a masterpiece, but a good page really conveys the purpose of why you develooped it for the audience.
BobABW: MaxEmilya has a very practical question next:Question: Web browsing can take minutes per page when graphics are involved, even at (a modem speed of) 14,400kb. At what modem speed do you think this will stop being such a bottleneck, and when do you think we will see this?
Yahoo df: I think at 14.4 much of the Web today is still very usable. One of the design goals with Yahoo has always been to make it fast even for the 14.4 users. Jerry and myself have always had a T1 or greater connection, which means 10 to 100 times faster than a 14.4. Even at those speeds, graphics can sometimes slow things down, so we've always kept our graphics to the absolute minimum. But in some cases, graphics are needed to add a lot to the presentation. I think until cable modems and things like ISDN catch on, Web publishers need to be careful with the number and size of graphics they use. To answer the question, I think at the level of ISDN graphics are acceptable and above that makes it that much better.
BobABW: Giant Nas sounds like an investment banker:Question: I apologize if this was already covered. I love Yahoo and use it daily. Now that you guys have started your own company, what type of pricing structure are you planning on having?
Yahoos6012: Pricing structure: Free for the users, and free for the listers. We are trying to have a handful of sponsors to sponsor various categories of Yahoo, but we don't envision tons of advertising/yellow page stuff on Yahoo. The goal is to maintain a clear separation between the "directory" part, which is objective and is (consistent) with our editorial tone, and the "commercial" part, which is clearly sponsored content.
BobABW: CTAngus has an international question this time:Question: I also want to know the status of Yahoo in Eastern Europe, specifically Russia. You have some good Web sites, but I need to know how to help others who may not be able to access (you) right now.
Yahoo df: We are currently available from any country that's connected to the Net. However, we will be adding mirror sites in various countries in order to increase the access speed as well as present more local content.
BobABW: Here's a question that's close to home, from DShomer:Question: Have you guys tried AOL's Web browsers for Mac or Windows, and what do you think?
Yahoos6012: To be honest, I haven't played on it too much. But I think it has come a long way in a short period of time. We have been using mostly Netscape, which seems to have better features and performance, but AOL's Windows version seems to be pretty good. I think the Mac version is a little behind, but overall it's functional and lets you get a good feel for the Web, despite some possible performance penalties...
JoanOCBW: David, jumping back just a step. Can you explain to folks what a mirror site is?
Yahoo df: Sorry about that. What I meant by a mirror site was that we would replicate the Yahoo service on computers located in other countries. Currently, all accesses to Yahoo go to one central site at Netscape. By replicating the service via mirror sites, we will allow users in other countries to have quicker access.
BobABW: LeSeth has kind of a personal question:Question: How often do you guys browse the Web, and for how long?
Yahoos6012 : We live, breathe, sleep on the Web...just kidding.
Yahoo df: No, he's not.
Yahoos6012: Truthfully, we spend quite a bit of time on the Web these days, although not as much as we used to. There is just too much stuff new and changing that it's hard to keep track of. To answer your question, I personally do about 2-4 hours a day, depending on what else is going on...
BobABW: MaxEmilya hasn't yet read Joan's online-only story (under What's New/Computer Room):Question: What is the origin of the name "Yahoo"?
Yahoo df: Yahoo is an acronym that stands for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. We first came up with the name and then fit the words to make the acronym. We just thought the name sounded cool and the words fit..
BobABW: Here's a logical followup from Maxmouze:Question: What made you think of making this site?
Yahoos6012: The politically correct answer: Cuz we wanted to make the net a better place to live. The real answer: We were bored with our PhD theses and wanted to procrastinate. The project started out being something to make David's life and mine easier, so we could go back and find things that we found the day before. Before we knew it, we were categorizing things that we personally didn't care much for, but that others might care about. The rest, as they say, is history...
BobABW: DShomer wants to know the basics:Question: What kind of machine do the Yahoo listings reside on?
Yahoo df: Currently Yahoo is being hosted on several SGI Indy's and a couple of PCs running Unix.
BobABW: RParets has a good business question:Question: Is Yahoo currently the only Web site out there categorizing other sites to this extent? And if so, is there competition on the horizon?
Yahoos6012: We are not the only ones that categorize the Web, but we are one of the most comprehensive. Certainly there are a lot of competitors, because this is such an important piece of content/software that makes the Internet usable. Our view is that the Internet and its content is so vast that it's hard to have one entity categorize and be the definitive directory. Rather, we present our view of organizing the Web content that we know. As for competitors, they have their views, and their version. We will let the users decide what's best for them. As we always say, Yahoo also stands for "you always have other options."
BobABW: Here's another good question, from DShomer:Question: You mention "editorial tone"... Do you preview pages you list and "screen" them, or will you list any page that's submitted?
Yahoo df: We do preview all the pages we list, but we do this mainly to insure that only sites of some value get listed. We also need to verify that the sites are being categorized correctly. On top of that, we select a few of the best ones and highlight those in various ways. We try to be as comprehensive as possible, which means we try to list most things that come through.
BobABW: NSnick has a newsworthy followup:Question: Do you believe in allowing sex pictures, stories, and other related paraphernalia on the Internet and your Web site?
Yahoos6012: Ooh, a trick question. Please don't mind if I take a bit of time to answer this. Originally, Yahoo had all kinds of sex sites and pictures. Our belief has always been that we should be a "mirror" of the Web content. After all, we are a directory of what the Web has to offer. When we got popular, the sex pic sites we listed would get bombarded with requests and be unable to handle the traffic. Listing such sites has always been an "underground" activity. So rather than destroying every site we point to, and rather than putting up with maintenance issues on our end (removing sites soon after we put them up), we decided not to list the picture sites.
BobABW: On that note, folks, we're out of time.
Yahoos6012: Darn.
BobABW: Thanks to Jerry Yang and David Filo for an interesting 45 minutes.
Yahoos6012: Thanks Bob and Joan, and Business Week, for having us.
JoanOCBW: Good luck!
Yahoo df: And thanks to the audience for the questions.
OnlineHost: Thanks to David Filo and Jerry Yang of Yahoo Corp., to BW San Francisco correspondent Joan Hamilton, and to all the BW Online team for this evening's program. And thanks to all of you on AOL--with apologies to those whose questions we didn't get to. If you would like to continue the discussion, we invite you to move to the BW Online Chat Room (it's under Talk on our opening screen) or to post comments and questions on the BW Online Message Boards (try the Computers & Communications category).
Transcripts of all BW Online conferences are available soon after the event (look under Talk, Special Events, or Search BW). Join us for another in our Interview with the Author series tomorrow night, July 19 (9 p.m. ET, Bowl). Our guest tomorrow will be Michael Schrage, author of "No More Teams!" And remember that there's a BW Online conference every Sunday at 9 p.m. ET in the Globe. Thanks again for being with us, and goodnight!
Copyright 1995 the McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
