Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
lion dollars; that would be really nice. They're a fierce competitor and they're very good in
search."
"Bartz has proven herself to be aggressive, foulmouthed, and utterly likable," com-
ments journalist Cal Fussman. "But she still has to prove she can fix Yahoo! ... One of her
first acts was to inform her staff that she would 'drop-kick to fucking Mars' anyone who
leaked company secrets. Since then she's been trying to return Yahoo! to dominance, de-
liberately destroying everyone's impression of what it actually does. After a deal with Mi-
crosoft, Yahoo! is transforming from a search engine to a Web portal - one that, if Bartz is
right, will attract new users (and new revenue) by trimming unwieldy Web searches down
to personalized streams of information. She has her skeptics. But Bartz is right a lot, and
most CEOs of her caliber don't earn their pay by luck. Neither do cocktail waitresses, and
Bartz was once one of those, too. She knows when to give someone a 'bunny dip.' And she
knows when someone needs a good drop-kicking."
"Tomorrow's Yahoo! is going to be really tailored," Bartz has said of her retooling of
the troubled firm. "I'm not talking about organization - organizing means that you already
know what you want and somebody's just putting it in shape for you. I'm talking about both
smart science and people culling through masses of information on the fly and figuring
out what people want to know. We will be delivering your interests to you. For instance,
if you're a sports fan but have no interest in tennis, we won't show you tennis. We would
know that you do things in a certain sequence, so we'd say, 'Here's your portfolio. Here's
some news you might like. Oh, you went to this movie last week, here's some other movies
you might want to check out.' I call it the Internet of One. I want it to be mine, and I don't
want to work too hard to get what I need. In a way, I want it to be HAL. I want it to learn
about me, to be me, and cull through the massive amount of information that's out there to
find exactly what I want."
Of course, beyond Yahoo!, one of the most dominant success stories on the Internet is
leading retailer Amazon (originally
Cadabra
, but then renamed by founder Jeff Bezos after
the world's longest and most ecologically diverse river). Incorporated in 1994 and launched
in 1995, the firm made its first annual profit in 2003. Amazon started out as an online book-
store but soon added electronics, software, DVDs, video games, music, apparel, footwear,
health products and more. TIME named Bezos its 1999 Person of the Year in recognition
of his central role in defining the new e-commerce marketplace.
Amazon's retail business extends to the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany,
Japan, and China. As well, the company hosts and operates retail web sites for such firms
as Marks & Spencer, Lacoste, the NBA, Bebe Stores and Target.
Amazon went public in 1997. "Silencing any doubts about its chances on the public
market, Amazon ended the day $54 million richer as its long-awaited initial public offering
soared 30 percent above its opening price," commented CNET on May 15 of that year.
"Propelled by demand that pushed opening trading to 29-1/4, the pioneering online book-
