# Alta Vista--turn out the light. It's over. (A dogpile question) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 29, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175 "2013-06-29T02:19:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/41 "2013-06-30T06:26:20Z")
I went Webcrawler (god, remember Web roulette? That was a blast.), lycos, Alta Vista, AskJeeves, Google (circa 1999), and lately Bing, just cuz. This, coupled with gopher and Corel being a relevant software player, is quite a nostalgia trip! Thanks guys. Anyone manage to get Mosaic to work on an Android phone yet? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/42 "2013-06-30T08:19:02Z")
AltaVista was the first search engine I used in '93/94. Occasionally you would go to use it and there would be a message saying “We are down while we add an additional GB of RAM to the host”. It was a single node DEC research project. Eventually it became a cluster of Alpha machines, and it was fast - it’s biggest advantage. But it was pure search - no ranking, and the human sorted lists and aggregate sites gained favour. Then Compaq purchased DEC and lost interest - AltaVista was sold to a marketing company called CMDG who tried to monetise it with ads. In 2001 I moved to the UK. I was offered a job at CMDG. I thought it was cool to be working for the company that ran AltaVista, even though I no longer used it. But on my first day I was shown the server room and a stack of laptops that used to belong to the sales staff they had recently laid off - when I got an offer with EDS the next day, I took that and didn’t look back. Sad to hear AV is gone, but it lost the market a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/43 "2013-06-30T08:29:00Z")
And it was CMGI - who do still exist. I didn’t even know that Yahoo now owned them. ---
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/44 "2013-06-30T10:40:51Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#): > > A little aside, I’m shocked to see buildings with an Earthlink sign on them. I’ve seen maybe 4 in 3 different countries! > > I had no idea they were still around. EarthLink is most certainly still around. My paycheck says so!! Not sure what countries you’re referring to, but we are a domestic company. The only thing I can imagine is maybe an offshore call center? Anyway, EarthLink. Yes still around, but figured out long ago being an ISP did not have a future in it. We do do still have a few ISP customers, amazingly, but the company has transitioned into being an IT Services, IP Voice, and Data network provider to the SMB market. Cloud services, MPLS network, hosted voice systems, etc. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/45 "2013-06-30T13:55:01Z")
Thing I liked most about AltaVista was that I could slap quotation marks around a search string and it would treat it as an exact phrase search. Most other search engines would respond with something like “Hey, we noticed you enclosed your search string in quotation marks. As a special extra service, we’re ignoring them and giving you what _we_ think you wanted!” Then AV affiliated with Yahoo! and that feature went away. Now I mostly use Bing because I just can’t bring myself to join the Googlemind. ---
**Author:** ![Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/77aa72/32.png) [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fluffy_PickleSniffer)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/46 "2013-06-30T14:57:42Z")
Wow, this is a trip down memory lane 🙂 You guys inspired me - I went looking for my old spreadsheet that I used to keep and update with all search engine info for doing our website at my workplace. Found it too! Here’s a screen grab of it just for the fun of it - thought you guys would enjoy: [Search Engines](http://www.flickr.com/photos/fluffy_jo/9175793530/sizes/k/in/photostream/) ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/47 "2013-06-30T15:23:20Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > Anyway, EarthLink. Yes still around, but figured out long ago being an ISP did not have a future in it. We do do still have a few ISP customers, amazingly… Not so amazingly. Some very unlucky folks are still stuck with dialup. And then there are the ones like me - I keep my Earthlink account for the webmail service. I like it better than the web-based email my “real” ISP offers, and Earthlink has been my primary email account since 1998. And I’m happy to keep paying my monthly subscription cost to keep it that way! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/48 "2013-06-30T15:50:58Z")
I had no idea it was this popular. I remember it existing, but I never used it for much. The web wasn’t as appealing on a Unix shell, and when I did use it, I either used Yahoo! or URLs from books people gave me. I had more fun with Telnet and Gopher. And I was on a bunch of mailing lists using Pine. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/49 "2013-06-30T16:47:17Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Precisely. Google has a market cap of almost $300 billion. They’re one of the biggest companies in the world. Barring some catastrophic stock collapse, they’re the ones doing the buying. Always. All due respect, Justin, but as always your vision extends about to next Sunday. Google will someday be an entity ready to be acquired, or if not that, reshaped under a new and less-scrupled board - and whoever acquires or takes it over will have instant access to the uncountable terabytes of data and processing power, and will likely have the “Don’t Be Evil” plaque quietly consigned to a back room. My entire point is that there are people who are content with Google doing all it does specifically because they’re being so “nice” about it. Only an idiot could think that would last, and unlike most tech companies that fold, Google’s intellectual property will only increase in value. It’s not some marginal edge in CPU or search or graphics tech that will be quaintly obsolete in a few years; it’s immeasurably vast databases of marketing and online behavior information with a lifespan of many decades, or more. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/50 "2013-06-30T16:57:05Z")
> [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](#): > > Wow, this is a trip down memory lane 🙂 > You guys inspired me - I went looking for my old spreadsheet that I used to keep and update with all search engine info for doing our website at my workplace. Found it too! > Here’s a screen grab of it just for the fun of it - thought you guys would enjoy: > [Search Engines](http://www.flickr.com/photos/fluffy_jo/9175793530/sizes/k/in/photostream/) Great link. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/51 "2013-06-30T17:05:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Makes you wonder what current giants will be forgotten. It seems unthinkable but maybe in ten years there’ll be some backpage announcement that Google is being shut down and we’ll all be saying “Oh, right, Google, I remember that. That was still around?” It’s already happened. Anyone remember [Visicalc](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc)? It’s the single piece of software responsible for our having desktop computers today. Or how about [Wordstar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar), which ruled the word processor world back in the early 80s? Man, that makes me feel old. I’ve used both those programs and thought they were the absolute cat’s ass at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/52 "2013-06-30T21:19:51Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Google will someday be an entity ready to be acquired, or if not that, reshaped under a new and less-scrupled board - and whoever acquires or takes it over will have instant access to the uncountable terabytes of data and processing power, and will likely have the “Don’t Be Evil” plaque quietly consigned to a back room. > > My entire point is that there are people who are content with Google doing all it does specifically because they’re being so “nice” about it. Only an idiot could think that would last, and unlike most tech companies that fold, Google’s intellectual property will only increase in value. It’s not some marginal edge in CPU or search or graphics tech that will be quaintly obsolete in a few years; it’s immeasurably vast databases of marketing and online behavior information with a lifespan of many decades, or more. Google is the third-biggest company in America right now, by market cap. That kind of reach doesn’t just disappear overnight. And that kind of entrenched groupmind doesn’t change due to a board of directors switch. It infects the whole company and it’s affecting the way other big businesses work: > **[Google](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google#Corporate_affairs_and_culture)** > > Google LLC (/ˈɡuːɡəl/ ⓘ, GOO-gəl) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" by the BBC and is one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field o Go... “Don’t Be Evil” may ultimately be just a plaque, but it will take a long time to get there. And maybe, just maybe, Google’s motto will survive long after the creators have moved on. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/53 "2013-06-30T23:13:26Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Google is the third-biggest company in America right now, by market cap. That kind of reach doesn’t just disappear overnight. And that kind of entrenched groupmind doesn’t change due to a board of directors switch. I’m not sure whether to admire your trust or sigh over your inexperience. A little of both is in order, perhaps. You clearly have no historical sense of how fast things can go bad for even the biggest companies when the game changes or shit happens. Just within the modern computer spectrum, go look up WordPerfect, Lotus, Borland, dBASE IV, Cyrix… oh, and Eagle Computers while you’re at it. Most of these were world-dominating titans with an unbreakable lock on their market segment or even a good sweep of the computing industry. All are gone or minor husks of themselves. Google maybe larger - right now - and more diversified, but trust me - I’ve been watching this industry for 30+ years - shit happens, and the one constant is that no one, especially not in the rosewood-paneled boardrooms, saw it coming. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/54 "2013-06-30T23:34:55Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > IIRC, Dogpile wasn’t even a search engine, it was a search engine aggregator. > [@pulykamell](#): > > Hell, I don’t even remember Dogpile. [**It’s still around**](http://www.dogpile.com/search/advancedsearch?qc=web), at least in name. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/55 "2013-07-01T05:28:32Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > EarthLink is most certainly still around. My paycheck says so!! Not sure what countries you’re referring to, but we are a domestic company. The only thing I can imagine is maybe an offshore call center? > > Anyway, EarthLink. Yes still around, but figured out long ago being an ISP did not have a future in it. We do do still have a few ISP customers, amazingly, but the company has transitioned into being an IT Services, IP Voice, and Data network provider to the SMB market. Cloud services, MPLS network, hosted voice systems, etc. I still have an earthlink email account … 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/56 "2013-07-01T11:22:38Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Just within the modern computer spectrum, go look up WordPerfect, Lotus, Borland, dBASE IV, Cyrix… oh, and Eagle Computers while you’re at it. Most of these were world-dominating titans with an unbreakable lock on their market segment or even a good sweep of the computing industry. All are gone or minor husks of themselves. Google maybe larger - right now - and more diversified, but trust me - I’ve been watching this industry for 30+ years - shit happens, and the one constant is that no one, especially not in the rosewood-paneled boardrooms, saw it coming. Here’s where you’re not getting it. Google has no “market segment.” They have their fingers in _ **everything** _. When you’ve got the best search engine, the best webmail client, the best maps site, the best video player, the best cloud text editor, the best image searcher, the best news portal, and the most popular mobile platform, you can afford to take a few fliers… like self-driven cars and, a social network. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/57 "2013-07-01T16:30:43Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > “Don’t Be Evil” may ultimately be just a plaque, but it will take a long time to get there. And maybe, just maybe, Google’s motto will survive long after the creators have moved on. “Don’t Be Evil” has been just a plaque for quite some time now. Google does plenty of evil stuff these days, and that slogan (and the memory of the early days when it meant something) has just made it easier for them to get away with it. I think they meant it originally, but past a certain size (that Google is now very far past) and the structural need of a corporation to maximize profits far outweighs any goodwill even the most powerful of the people involved may feel. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/58 "2013-07-01T17:00:42Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Google is the third-biggest company in America right now, by market cap. [That kind of reach doesn’t just disappear overnight.](http://www.citedeleconomie.fr/Collapse-of-Enron-the-7th-largest) And that kind of entrenched groupmind doesn’t change due to a board of directors switch. It infects the whole company and it’s affecting the way other big businesses work: Fixed that for ya. 😉 From 7th largest company to bankrupt in 10 months. Not necessarily overnight, but damned quick. ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/59 "2013-07-01T17:29:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think the point is that Google could only be bought out by someone significantly larger, and there _is_ no one who’s large enough. … Who else is even a contender? Apple. And that’s pretty much it. Extremely unlikely, of course, and Apple’s market cap is on the decline (though still enormous…385B). But the reason they are one that actually probably COULD do it? They have 145 Billion dollars cash on hand. Right now. So, they could buy half of Google right now without even doing any sort of lending or other acquisition processes. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175/60 "2013-07-01T19:55:10Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Fixed that for ya. 😉 > > From 7th largest company to bankrupt in 10 months. Not necessarily overnight, but damned quick. I very much doubt that Google is cooking the books. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alta-vista-turn-out-the-light-its-over-a-dogpile-question/662175.md?page=4)