Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! made a deal with the online communications company Four11 for co-branded white pages. Marvin Gavin, who worked at Four11 as the Director of International Business Development, said "We always had a bias about being acquired by Yahoo. They were more entrepreneurial than Microsoft. We had a great cultural fit – it made a lot of sense." In the end, Yahoo! acquired Four11 for $96 million. The purpose behind acquiring Four11 was the company's RocketMail webmail service, which launched in 1997. Yahoo! announced the acquisition on October 8, 1997, close to the time that Yahoo! Mail was launched. Yahoo! chose acquisition rather than internal platform development, because, as Healy said, "Hotmail was growing at thousands and thousands users per week. We did an analysis. For us to build, it would have taken four to six months, and by then, so many users would have taken an email account. The speed of the market was critical."
Yahoo! Answers
The website Yahoo! was officially incorporated on March 2, 1995, and was created by Jerry Yang and David Filo. The website began as a search directory for various websites, and soon grew into an established Internet resource that features the "Yahoo! Answers" platform. Yahoo! Answers was launched on June 28, 2005, while in internal alpha testing by Director of Engineering, Ofer Shaked. Yahoo! Answers was launched to the general public while in beta testing on December 8, 2005, which lasted until May 14, 2006. Yahoo! Answers was finally incorporated for general availability on May 15, 2006.