The Decline And Fall Of AltaVista
from the from-there-to-here dept
With the news of AltaVista’s sale reminding folks of the search company’s existence, the Boston Globe is looking at how AltaVista collapsed. It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that AltaVista was the search engine on the internet. They were Google before there was a Google. However, being owned by DEC, then Compaq, then CMGI, did plenty of damage. No one seemed to know what to do with AltaVista, and when they finally set themselves on a portal strategy it was way too late. Of course, in doing that, they also took their eye off the ball in pure search, thinking there wasn’t as much money in that. That, of course, allowed folks like Google to come in and take over the entire market.
